The Australian government has announced a direct pathway to citizenship for New Zealanders, ending a tension between the two countries that has lasted for more than 20 years.
Since 2001, New Zealanders in Australia have been able to reside there on a Special Category Visa. While it has allowed them to remain in Australia indefinitely, getting permanent residency and citizenship has been much more difficult.
It has meant New Zealanders have been unable to access benefits such as student loans, join the Defence Force, or even vote.
In contrast, Australians in New Zealand have had a clear pathway to citizenship after five years.
But from 1 July, New Zealanders who have been on the Special Category Visa and lived in Australia for four years will be able to get citizenship.
They will still need to meet standard criteria (such as pass a character check, a language test, and intend to stay in Australia), and attend a citizenship ceremony.
The pathway is retrospective, meaning those in Australia since 2001, when the SCV came into effect, will be able to apply for citizenshipwithout gaining permanent residence first.
Kiwi children born in Australia will become citizens at birth, rather than waiting until they are 10 years old.
Amazing what progress can be made when governments quietly sit down and talk about issues rather than political posturing and grandstanding through the media, something the centre-right parties of both countries seem unable to do.
Citizenship will allow voting, access to benefits, housing and tertiary education support for children (someone in Oz Labour wants re-election).
And the Oz pension and access to their health system in retirement is appealing to longer term guest workers.
The greater certainty provided will make employment there more attractive to Kiwis as we enter a worker shortage era (something their mandarins would have noted).
The main change for older Oz based kiwis is the right to vote. Younger kiwis who work there and opt for Oz citizenship after 4 years will then have the same rights as Australian citizens already have in NZ. The changes just reverse the mean (but politically targeted) policy brought in by the Howard government in 2001. NZ and Oz have a reciprocal social security arrangement so anyone applying for super in NZ or age pension in Oz and have spent time in both countries get a contribution from both Centrelink (Oz) and MSD (NZ) so that the total is equivalent to the applicable pension in the country the person lives. No change with the new policy.
There are 70,000 Australians resident in NZ, so based on the relative population sizes, equivalent to 350,000 NZers in Oz. That means that there are twice as many kiwis in Oz as Aussies in NZ on a comparable basis.
Again, NZ and Oz citizens get reciprocal health rights in each country, so if you are a NZer in Oz or an Aussie in NZ you get the right to use each other's health system – if you want to get a Medicare card in Oz as a NZer you have to say you want to live there, which is pretty easy. You then may get free doctor's visits if you can access a doc that allows bulk billing. The Oz health system is under similar strains as NZ even if it is in better condition overall. Many GPs now are rejecting bulk billing unless the subsidy they get from the federal government is bumped up (it stayed the same for many years of Coalition government). The centre left Labor government in Oz has the same challenge as NZ – how to pay for better infrastructure or maintain creaking current infrastructure without finding ways of creating a fairer tax system. The easier pathway for NZers to get Aussie citizenship will not affect their access to health care at all (but will make kiwis in Oz feel more secure for the future in a more general way).
The actual total of Kiwis in Oz appears to be quite a bit higher.
This is not the full number of New Zealanders living across the Tasman, estimated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to be around 700,000 – nearly 15% of New Zealand’s population.
That would be right – as I said above, the percentage of Aussies in NZ compared to the NZ population would be equivalent to 350,000 NZers in Oz, so the fact that there are 700,000 kiwis in Oz means that there are twice as many in comparison. Not sure of the numbers but think the percentage of Maori kiwis in Oz is even higher in proportion. However, that is just a reflection of the fact that people move when they think they can get a better deal when they are permitted to do so. No doubt Maori ancestors from what is now Raetea and the French Poly Society Islands thought the same back in the 1300s when they sailed to Aotearoa!
That is a good point – I made much the same rough calculation myself a few years back and came to much the same conclusion. The idea that trans-Tasman migration is all a one-way street is a bit of a myth.
In fact there are scarcely two nations on earth socially and economically more entangled than Aus and NZ. It has only been the political realm that we have drifted apart in recent decades.
This move hopefully signals a reversal of that trend.
"Explaining how the government has got itself into such a muddle requires another column. It will tell us much about deep structural failures in the government."
I hear this repeated a lot. Most recently in a conversation with two friends explaining the pushback against the Three Waters proposal.
While I see that some of the concerns expressed around the co-governance structure come from a place of frustration and/or racism, I think this framing of racism being the main reason for concerns is a form of racism itself.
The time for such co-governance structures was passed a long time ago.
We had many mechanisms for including necessary consultation with local iwi for resource consents, and Māori consultants at other levels of local and regional. councils. While some may have valid criticisms of this process, (which are duplicated by environmentalists who are in the same position) it was an implementation in a democratic society that did not impact on transparency, or duplicate needlessly the levels of administration in any organisation.
Māori are not a hive mind. Any representative selected to hold representative positions in the original proposal, were non-elected and non-accountable.
There was a conversation on here a while ago where I posted the link to the original paper and discussed the lack of clarity over the way it was written:
So, you’re deflecting and not answering my very basic and specific question to you and/or addressing the contradiction in your comment? Instead, you’re luring me into three links, no less. Quelle surprise – discussion with you here is futile!
Incognito, I asked a question of Ngungukai to which I thought he might have the answer since he specifically mentioned Māori co-governance.
Then answered your question with references to what was known before, so those with updated knowledge could clarify.
"Do you believe the representatives are non-accountable or do you assert that?"
How can I know the answer to that without knowing if this part has been updated?
"Instead, you’re luring me into three links, no less. Quelle surprise – discussion with you here is futile!"
I was asking Ngungukai for information.
Your demand for a stated position before it was answered is a peculiar one.
Your practice of making comments berating style and commenters however is becoming a familiar one. There is an element to it that seems to have lost perspective.
I asked you to clarify something that was not a question in your comment to Ngungukai but a statement that representatives “were non-elected and non-accountable”.
This could be taken as an opinion or an assertion and you asked specifically:
Has this changed?
So, was it your opinion or your assertion?
This was not a demand although Mods do sometimes moderate commenters to clarify their assertions and distinguish those from their opinions – they do this through Mod notes, as you know full well. This is nothing new and nothing personal.
Obviously, you cannot know Ngungukai’s answer. But you knew the premise of your final question, which was either your opinion or your assertion.
You see, I can read your comments without losing perspective – nice snide, BTW. There was no berating of your style even though I mentioned that there was a contradiction in that particular part of your comment, which was content-related, not style-related.
I don’t expect you to answer anymore. I don’t want to have to read through copious links and scroll through long copy & pasta from legal documents and Bills because that’s not what I asked for and I’ll never find it in there, and you know it. I was aiming for a simple clarification from you to a simple question of mine.
If you don’t want to give clarifications, don’t want to give answers to straightforward questions, or don’t want to engage in debate, that is perfectly fine unless specifically requested by a Mod – even then you still have a choice to comply or not. Simply say nothing. However, please don’t respond with deflections, twisting of words, or accusations because that’s a likely way of inflaming discourse.
This was not a demand although Mods do sometimes moderate commenters to clarify their assertions and distinguish those from their opinions – they do this through Mod notes, as you know full well. This is nothing new and nothing personal."
It neither an opinion, or an assertion, it was my previous understanding.
Are you feeling adequately fulfilled now with my answer, to leave the offloading of frustration to some other instance? I doubt it, but will live in hope.
"I don’t expect you to answer anymore. I don’t want to have to read through copious links and scroll through long copy & pasta from legal documents and Bills because that’s not what I asked for and I’ll never find it in there, and you know it. I was aiming for a simple clarification from you to a simple question of mine."
Of course, you don't want an answer. It appears instead you want the opportunity to wax lyrical, without any requirement to read someone else's lyrical waxing.
Wax On, Incognito. I may return but I'll wax off for now.
[I asked you not to respond with deflections, accusations, and twisting of words. Yet, your immediate response does exactly that!? This is your warning – Incognito]
Māori are not a hive mind. Any representative selected to hold representative positions in the original proposal, were non-elected and non-accountable.
Has this changed?
and
There is no election of 33 representatives – just apptmts.
I assumed with the review and rebrand it may have changed, do you know if it has?
Yes there was concern about the appointment process. This was despite the appointment process being used in planning work in local authorities where there has been provision for the representation from local iwi etc who were subject to selection from within the iwi then appointment not election.
In the new legislation (bill) there are these provisions
Clause 6 mana whenua, for an identified area, means the iwi or hapū holding and exercising, in accordance with tikanga, authority or other customary rights or interests in that area
1 Clause 33 Method of appointing mana whenua representatives to regional representative group
Mana whenua whose rohe or takiwā is within the service area of a water services entity must appoint mana whenua representatives to the regional representative group of the water services entity in accordance with section 27(2) and (3) and the constitution.
2 Clauses 27(2) & (3)
27 Establishment and membership of regional representative group
(1) This section establishes a regional representative group for each water services entity.
(2) Each regional representative group consists of a number of regional representatives that is provided for in the constitution (see section 91(a)(i)) and is—
(a) 12 regional representatives; or
(b) any greater number of regional representatives.
(3) Each entity’s regional representative group must include an equal number of—
(a) territorial authority representatives; and
(b) mana whenua representatives.
Clause 38 This group (Regional rep) then appoints a Board Appointment Committee
The Board Appointment committee has the functions to
Functions of board appointment committee
The functions of the board appointment committee are—
(a) to appoint and remove members of the board of a water services entity; and
(b) to prepare and maintain an appointment and remuneration policy for the board; and
(c) to perform or exercise any of the regional representative group’s functions and powers that are delegated to the committee in relation to appointing and removing board members.
Ok so having got the regional representatives who appoint the Board appts committee, this committee appoints the board.
57 Membership of board
(1) The board of a water services entity consists of no fewer than 6, and no more than 10, members.
(2) The board appointment committee must appoint board members who, collectively, have knowledge of, and experience and expertise in relation to,—
(a) performance monitoring and governance; and
(b) network infrastructure industries (for example, water services network infrastructure industries); and
(c) the principles of te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi; and
(ca) public health; and
(cb) the environment; and
(d) perspectives of mana whenua, mātauranga, tikanga, and te ao Māori; and
(e) perspectives of consumers and communities; and
(f) perspectives of local government.
Clause 63 sets out the
Criteria for appointments by board appointment committee
(1) A board appointment committee must appoint board members under section 62 in accordance with the criteria for board members and the process for appointment under this Act (including the appointment and remuneration policy (if any) approved by the regional representative group under section 40).
(2) The board appointment committee may only appoint a person who, in the committee’s opinion, has the appropriate knowledge, skills, and experience to assist the water services entity to achieve its objectives and perform its functions.
(3) In making an appointment, the board appointment committee must take into account the desirability of promoting diversity in the membership of the board.
The whole process seems to work by appointment. It seems now to have as many checks and balances as the US Constitution (kidding!)
What it seems to do, whuch seems bit novel compared with the original process is to build up to the appointment of the board (Water Services entity) or (flaxroots up) or in another way, popular in the 'olden days' of Board etc formation was the concept of a Steering Committee/Group having the power to appoint a Board/s that sat below them.and did all the day to day work.
I have not seen the explanations of how the new system works philosophically but to me either way from flaxroots up or from a Steering group having an important role would work in a being able to sell the concept.
ETA I've found this from the press release of 13/4.
Strategic oversight and direction to be provided by local representative groups with every local council in the country, as well as mana whenua, getting a seat at the table
The ability to choose people with skills seems a better fit than perhaps ethnically chosen but run off their feet because the skills may be thin on the ground.
The areas will be much larger than before and the appointment to the important Regional Representative groups (Local Authorities/Maori) that set in train the whole appt process will include different tribal groups.
I think I have got this set up correctly. Having worked with this Board type legislation for most of my working life I can see the imprint/influence of a different statutory drafting hand from what was originally drafted. The concept and clauses seem tighter, And more akin to board statutory legislation of old.
I cannot see any appointment time limits say for 5 years etc or a process to appoint to a vacancy in the mana whenua side should a death or resignation occur. I haven't looked very hard.
Hopefully this is some help.
ETA Sorry for all the quotes from legislation. It is an interesting way of working
I'll see what else has changed. The was reference in the draft I looked at closely to an as yet unwritten (or unavailable) constitution.
I found the details around the mana whenua representatives required a lot of referencing back and forward, and still ended up with a poor understanding of what the bill intended in that respect.
I'd hoped someone who considered any concerns raised as "People are shit scared the mawrees" might have a firm grasp on this aspect, and be able to explain it.
""Yes there was concern about the appointment process. This was despite the appointment process being used in planning work in local authorities where there has been provision for the representation from local iwi etc who were subject to selection from within the iwi then appointment not election.""
Yes, I mentioned that in my response to Ngungukai and still fully support that consulting role for the relevant knowledge as pertains to planning considerations etc. The one flaw that exists (which is true of any authority consultant relationship) is that as the relationship is established, consultants may become more attuned to the expectations of council and unconsciously adapt their contributions accordingly. Also, as those relationships strengthen – other discordant voices from mana whenua are not heard because there is already a representative at the table.
The concerns I had about the initial bill was that there was a requirement for other regional representatives to have experience or knowledge of water treatment systems, but none for the mana whenua representatives.
In that case, why are not retained as consultants, rather than given voting rights? There appeared to be no assessment of the value of knowledge they would bring in terms of the fundamental role of managing necessary infrastructure, before allocating them quite heavy influence on decision making, including that of veto.
But, as I said, I'll have to wade through. Thank you again.
I don't think anyone now could complain about too much Maori representation. It is there where it is most important I feel. The rep group (equal Maori/Local authority numbers) gets to set the Board Appointment Group, which gets to select the Boards.
Overnight I have had a think about terms of appointment and feel that is not as important as having a clear way of appointing replacements on resignation or death.
1. don't copy and paste long tracts. Use your own words, selective quotes, and links. Long tracts are a problem for mobile users, and people end up using them in lieu of making a clear point.
2. when you copy and paste, you have to make it clear what are your words and what is the quote. In the edit box there is a tag (looks like a quotation mark), that will indent the quote. Let me know if you need help on how to use that. Or you can go old school
>>
like this
<<
Or
like this.
and so on.
This matters because mods have to read a lot of material, and I don't want to have to be stopping and figuring out what is what. It also matters so that people reading can be clear about what is being said.
_____
Please add this explanation to your list on commenting, and please let me know you have read and understood and if you have any questions.
I am assuming this is aimed at me. When the numbering has gone some of us have adopted the idea of going
@xys then copying in the time.
Sorry I should have continued to bold the clauses.
Or indent though I had thought that was for quoting from other commenter's posts.
I had thought that another way is to put my comments in italics..
I am not keen on putting in my own words actual clauses of draft legislation that depend on precision. I cannot do better at explaining than the legal draftspeople.
So move from particular (legislation) bolded or indented to opinion italicised.
on a computer, there is a Reply list in the top right of every page. You can see that I have replied to you and then click on name of post/date stamp to take you to my comment. (On a phone, it’s the same in the Desktop version, but in the Mobile version there is no reply list. Switch to the Desktop version at the bottom of every page)
when the thread runs out of Reply buttons, mods can still reply from the back end and thus it will show up as a Reply in the Reply list. I almost always do this when moderating.
please don't bold the copy and pastes. The occasional phrase or word bolded is fine, but it's better for bold to be left for the mods because it 'pops' and gets people's attention.
you can instead use the various methods I gave to make it clear what is a copy and paste. Leave your own words in normal text.
indenting is used for any kind of quote/copy and paste.
it's fine if you don't want to put it into your own words. Just say something like "there's a good explanation of this in clause 6" and let people click through. Or, "clause 6 is the one to read on the issue of accountability". You don't have to reinterpret, you can just point.
That is why I tried to answer/comment/help by referring to the new legislation without needing to delve into semantics. It is complex but people who have been following will know of /recall Molly's concern about accountablility and how that was to be managed when people were appointed.
Balance sheet separation allows cheaper borrowing – this requires amalgamation (at least 3 council areas) to dilute control and the inclusion of alternative form of oversight (Maori and government appointee with expertise).
Anyone aware of WT decisions as to water, and the importance of corporate decision-making as to charging (rather than councillors beholden to an election cycle and the influence of local businesses – National's real connection is here).
The alternative is loading debt onto government and increasing its cost (keeping this low allows the government to provide funding to those of the 10 with a weaker ratepayer base).
You would think that help create a domestic pipeline of nurses would be receive an enthusiastic response and be treated with some urgency, right? Not so, when the Nursing Council of New Zealand is involved.
It shows that definitely not all red-tape comes from (central) Government; many obstacles & hindrances are at local levels such as institution or work-place and are often elevated to pseudo-legal (aka shady) status. Reasons behind are diverse but often involve power & control and patch-protection of fiefdoms – there is no meaningful difference between elected and appointed officials or pseudo-officials with more or less fancy titles.
Getting to be a nurse is difficult i.e a Nursing Degree is required and the reason is obvious, nursing is vastly more complicated than even 20 years ago and the position of Enrolled Nurse is essentially redundant as even the simplest nursing intervention requires a lot of documentation and a very thorough knowledge of maths and other disciplines, including very good communication and language proficiency. If a nurse cannot be understood by a compromised or even elderly person then they are not suitable for the job. The Nursing Council has been steadily upgrading the education of Enrolled nurses for a long time now so that all health staff caring for patients are of a similar standard.
The right-wing love affair with the idea of just recruiting anybody from anywhere who calls themselves a nurse to fill the void is a recipe for disaster.
This is about the one-size-fits-all dogma. Some things currently done by fully qualified nurses could easily be done by others with lower/lesser qualifications perfectly well and thus take a load off the hands of nurses to do what they’re trained to do. An example is the recruiting and training of vaccinators when the need was high and outstripped the capacity because of silly restraints. Similar things happening in ECE where staff need have degrees to get a foot in the door.
It is not about self-ID as nurse, pretend to be one, and then be let loose on unsuspecting patients. Unless one fakes their CV. The Nursing Council seems to have accepted the argument but is simply stalling.
You ‘d be surprised at the number of “ nurses “ who arrive here to do their NZ gualifying course whose certifications are less than acceptable. Just so long as they are working on somebody other than you eh Incognito.
The State-funded RNZ has published an article by a couple of academics that contains more than enough triggers to induce a fit of sorts with some.
The title (not a headline) contains the dreaded h-word. And it is downhill from there all the way to the end.
But embracing an argument built on a tissue of circumstantial evidence is also part of the conspiracy theory playbook: magical thinking enters the grey zone of unanswered questions to create elaborate narratives of false reassurance.
For the purpose of public debate, anecdotal evidence carries as much weight as circumstantial evidence, which is why it is often accompanied by a weak narrative masquerading as compelling argument. Sounds familiar?
The “contagion effect” has been in full display here in NZ more recently. It is as real as the Sun and the Moon. It needs pointing out that it can and does work in more than one direction (aka ‘both ways’, in the usual binary situation).
The simplest and most obvious answer to the origins of Covid are that it jumped (naturally) from an animal to a human. How it might have occurred is the question and one that should be dominating discourse – not some convoluted bedtime story about fairies and pixies mixing a Covid brew then transporting it to the wider public in an effort to create widespread genocide of the human population.
I agree with the authors. The fanciful conspiracies are merely a modern day version of the witches brews and wizardry dating back to before and during the middle ages. The adherents to these conspiracies – like their predecessors – are not very intelligent and live in a state of ignorance and stupidity.
The adherents to these conspiracies – like their predecessors – are not very intelligent and live in a state of ignorance and stupidity.
Intelligence per se doesn’t make one immune against prejudice and bias nor to dogmatic thinking, coupled with a stubborn belief in one’s intellectual & cognitive abilities that often lead to entrenched opinions that are defended with a zeal and a closed-mind for extra protection against the evil forces & influences. Is more common than we like to admit, contagious and never asymptomatic.
The adherents to these conspiracies – like their predecessors – are not very intelligent and live in a state of ignorance and stupidity.
A few adherents to such conspiracies may actually be very intelligent, not ignorant, and will advocate for conspiracy theories that are a good fit to their world view – the triumph of pre-existing biases over case-by-case rationality.
Editorial—The truth is out there: The psychology of conspiracy theories and how to counter them [27 February 2023]
Accordingly, in this special issue we showcase cutting-edge research that aims to move the field forward by focusing on three related yet previously neglected contributions; (1) experimental work on how to reduce belief in conspiracy theories, (2) research which highlights the unique cognitive processes involved in conspiracy belief, and (3) novel methodological approaches to studying conspiratorial thinking. We discuss the special issue’s contribution to each of these areas in turn.
Recognising that no-one is conpletely immune to a well-presented rabbit hole is a helpful component of any self-innoculation, but once you're personally invested in a conspiracy theory it can be difficult to climb out.
The conspiracy rabbit hole: Why do some fall in deep and how do some manage to climb out?
The study will answer three crucial questions: 1) When a person changes their belief about a conspiracy theory, what reasons do they give for this change? 2) To what extent does belief in one conspiracy theory lead to belief in other conspiracy theories? And 3) Do negative experiences such as stress and depression contribute to belief in conspiracy theories?
If we can understand more about why people trip and fall into the rabbit hole in the first place, and determine what it takes for them to choose to climb out, this will ultimately contribute to a more cohesive society; one that includes a healthy dose of scepticism, without the blinding darkness.
Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it. Finally suppose he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence that his belief is wrong. What will happen? The individual will frequently emerge not only unshaken but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed he may even show a new fervor for converting other people to his view. – Brooke Gladstone
The simplest and most obvious answer to the origins of Covid are that it jumped (naturally) from an animal to a human.
That would the obvious and parsimonious explanation – and it has plenty of precedent. But being obvious and natural does not always make an idea correct. Lab leaks also have plenty of precedent. It is also a documented fact the WIV was performing genetic research on coronavirus's, therefore a leak of a novel variant from this lab is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis.
It would also be nice if there was a sound chain of evidence supporting the natural ‘jump’ theory, because in this instance it is conspicuously missing.
On Thursday Professor George Gao, the former head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control, said that science needed a “rethink” because it now seemed an extra stage was not needed. The virus may have jumped straight from bats to humans.
Prof Gao told a conference in Geneva that scientists were also questioning whether Sars and Mers had jumped directly into humans, without needing the palm civets or camels originally blamed for the spillover.
Why does this matter? It is important because bats are not native to Wuhan, where the virus first emerged. They do not live in the area, and there is no evidence they were being brought from outside for sale in local wet markets.
Yet bats were coming into Wuhan through another route. Scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) were collecting the animals in China and south-east Asia and bringing them to the city for “sequencing, archiving, analysis and manipulation”.
The details of the science can be found in many places – anyone with the slightest amount of curiosity can find it.
But in short an animal virus has to master two tricks in order to cause a human pandemic. One is that it has to learn how to infect a new host, which is relatively rare event. There are literally trillions of virus's, but the appearance of novel ones in humans is not commonplace. The other quite different trick is that it then has to learn how to be highly transmissible between humans.
The odds of both of these happening simultaneously without leaving any genetic chain of evidence of this natural evolutionary process is effectively zero. On the other hand there is plain sight evidence of a lab working on a very similar non-natural process, exactly in the location of the first outbreak.
Some discount the Wuhan lab leak because they note spread from the Wuhan market area.
However one of the labs in Wuhan doing bat coronavirus research (more than one) actually moved its location to 500 metres from the Wuhan market on Dec 2 2019.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and this applies to both hypotheses. Your assertions show that you’ve already made up your mind and formed your opinion on the matter. However, this doesn’t change anything for those of us who’ll remain open-minded and refuse to pick one over the other. In any case, plausibility does not equate compelling let alone convincing.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and this applies to both hypotheses.
Yes there are two possible contending hypothesis and there is an absence of absolute evidence to definitively support either. Yet the reason for the absence is not equivalent for each. The reason why there is no evidence to prove the natural origin hypothesis is that despite a great deal of highly motivated effort to find it – nothing convincing has been uncovered.
The reason why there is an absence of definitive evidence for the lab leak is quite the opposite – the Chinese authorities have made every effort to prevent an open and trusted investigation into this matter.
The tenor of the first four comments on this topic that you have started was sneeringly dismissive of the lab leak hypothesis, linking to an article that offered no science based argument, instead offering an unsupported, spurious comparison with witch burning. It is not difficult to see that you too have made up you mind.
The reason I would suggest has nothing to do with witch burning, or conspiracy minded biases – it is simply a tribally political need to assure us that anything Trump said is forever automagically wrong. And perhaps more importantly to provide cover for the now well established fact of Democrat supported figures like Fauci who spear-headed much of the global response to COVID, was also deeply involved in the funding that enabled the Wuhan coronavirus research in the first place.
The unspoken reality here is that we are not debating science – but politics.
I don’t know what constitutes “absolute evidence” and I strongly suspect that it is a red herring.
The Chinese authorities are not the only ones stifling investigations. Nice try though.
Since you provided no links to those “the first four comments on this topic”, we can only guess what you have in mind.
It is not difficult to see that you too have made up you mind. [sic]
I agree, in fact, it is impossible because it is incorrect – you are seeing imaginary things.
You assume the article linked to @ 4 is part of a larger conspiracy, a false flag operation conducted by black-op academics.
‘kay.
The unspoken reality here is that we are not debating science – but politics.
Right, which would mean that the hypotheses of the origin of the virus are a smokescreen in a larger game of smoke and mirrors. Thus, people such as you take sides based on political arguments not scientific ones.
The title of the RNZ article you initially linked to pretty much told me all that I needed to know – implying as it clearly does that anyone who entertains the idea of a lab leak is indulging in 'medieval' hysteria and blame pointing. It explicitly invokes witch burning as a comparison.
Returning to the quote you selected to highlight:
But embracing an argument built on a tissue of circumstantial evidence is also part of the conspiracy theory playbook: magical thinking enters the grey zone of unanswered questions to create elaborate narratives of false reassurance.
Again chock full of pejoratives, and clearly implies circumstantial evidence can always be hand-waved off as 'magical conspiracy thinking'. Ask any criminal barrister about the key role circumstantial or corroborative evidence plays in criminal trials where there facts of the case are in dispute. Especially when there is no access to the original scene of the crime, or there are no reliable witnesses available.
The reality is that due to the passage of time, and the obduracy of the Chinese authorities, there is almost zero chance we will ever obtain first hand information that confirms the mountain of circumstantial evidence pointing to a lab leak. (The only remaining prospect of a breakthrough will be a credible whistle-blower, although given what we know about the CCP regime I consider this extremely unlikely.)
If you are going to demand an unobtainable standard of evidence, then I respectfully submit the debate you are asking for is going to be stillborn.
I see, you assume that if somebody links to an article it must always be about the title, the stuff that jumps out at you, the tip of the iceberg, and nothing else, no double messages, et cetera. It doesn’t seem to cross your mind that it might be because of the implicit take-home message, which might be more general than the topic matter might suggest prima facie – often the topic is merely a hook. This seems to happen with others too who are rather topic-obsessed topic-focussed and they always react to the self-raised red flag in a highly predictable way. I had you pegged as more perceptive and with a more depth.
If you are going to demand an unobtainable standard of evidence, then I respectfully submit the debate you are asking for is going to be stillborn.
I think this is a self-reference, as you mentioned “absolute evidence”, and nobody else has, so far.
I read the article in question – I always do because in so many instances I find it does not actually say what the person referencing it claims it does.
In this instance I found nothing of substance worth commenting on other than clickbaity title.
And in fact , the Wuhan scientists in a grant application proposed inserting a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus that would make the virus far more transmissible to humans .The very furin cleavage site that manifested in Wuhan .Why is a lab leak considered a conspiracy theory.?
It matches the requisites for Occam's razor far better than the leap from bat into humans.
The unspoken reality here is that we are not debating science – but politics.
There remains much 'we' don't know, let alone understand, and debating politics doesn't advance the science – let's remain open-minded while expert scientists debate the science.
Have we found the 'animal origin' of Covid? [25 March 2023]
"We have to get beyond the politics and back to the pure science," said Prof Holmes.
…
"Because this will happen again."
Searching for SARS-CoV-2 origins: confidence versus evidence [20 March 2023; PDF]
The hypotheses debate is reminiscent of the discussions
on the origins of HIV. In the late 1980s and ‘90s a now-
debunked hypothesis that a batch of the oral polio vaccine introduced HIV similarly captured media attention but was eventually refuted following publication of many robust genomic and phylogenetic studies.
…
However, one lesson the HIV/AIDS epidemic offers is that establishing the origin of a pathogen requires many studies over a period of time; then, once a large evidence base is gathered and can be objectively interpreted, a consensus can eventually be reached. It is difficult for such a consensus to be reached for SARS-CoV-2 if empty rhetoric that does not present informative data continues to be relayed to the public.
A Critical Analysis of the Evidence for the SARS-CoV-2 Origin Hypotheses [28 March 2023]
It is important to recognize that interpreting this failure to identify a feral source of SARS-CoV-2 as evidence supporting a laboratory origin constitutes the logical error of using the absence of evidence as evidence for an absence. We note that, as for the 2009 influenza pandemic, it took many years to identify the feral sources of SARS-CoV and HIV after their initial isolation from humans.
…
Nevertheless, it is possible that its origin may never be known with certainty.
The Origin of SARS-CoV-2: Animal Transmission or Lab Leak? [2 April 2023]
We are just at the beginning stages of understanding the complexity of viruses in the natural world, and further study will be critical for health and prosperity. U.S. national security experts may eventually need to become as familiar with the biology of pandemics as they are with the nuclear triad. But this won’t be possible as long as politics and rhetoric take precedence over reason and necessary research.
What New Evidence from the Wuhan Market Tells Us about COVID’s Origins [12 April 2023]
Recently released data from samples of the COVID-causing virus SARS-CoV-2 at the market where many early cases of the disease occurred suggest animals were present but stop short of proving that they were infected and transmitted the virus to humans.
If you were sincerely open-minded about the origin of COVID a man with your evident search engine expertise would have no difficulty finding plenty of references also making the case for a lab-leak.
For instance – here is an overview of the current US Administrations perspective on the matter – after considerable investigation:
The other well understood problem here is that virtually every expert virologist who we might normally rely upon for unbiased viewpoints – are hopelessly conflicted in this matter. For a start there is the well documented problem that anyone who speaks out against the approved narrative is very likely to be denied funding in future. And this is before we consider the wider concern many will reasonably have about the massive global damage to their profession's credibility if this event was ever proven to be due to be man-made.
The other well known challenge is the outright censorship or curation almost all medical journals are imposing on any COVID paper that is not aligned with editorial policy.
Normally I would like to think we could rely on the professional science debate to present both sides of the case in an even-handed fashion, but sadly this is not the case with this pandemic – almost all the regulators, journals and science bodies are deeply conflicted due to their massive reliance on single source, or industry funding, that constrains what they can safely say and still have a job.
If you were sincerely open-minded about the origin of COVID a man with your evident search engine expertise would have no difficulty finding plenty of references also making the case for a lab-leak.
Thanks Red – note that none of the 6 articles I linked to definitively rules out the lab leak hypothesis, which speaks to their credibility, imho. But have a read of them and see what you think.
Given the currently available evidence, the two plausible possibilities for the origin of SARS-CoV-2 are not equally likely. Continuing to frame them as such does us all a disservice, dilutes our efforts, and misdirects resources—only serving to weaken our ability to respond to future pandemics. https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.00583-23
We often see what we want to see. The attraction of the lab leak hypothesis is clear, and I admire your unshakable belief in its veracity.
I like to think I'm open-minded, and yes, I could find those pro-lab leak references. But, as I've mentioned on several occasions, in matters scientific I naturally tend to rely primarily on the evolving consensus opinion of expert scientists. In this case, maybe that's the wrong approach, but it's an approach which has served me well and for longer than I care to remember.
There was always one sure fire way to have proven me wrong. An unconstrained, trusted, open book, pockets out investigation at the WIV within days of the original event back in October 2019.
As it stands three years later we are left with either a natural origin hypothesis for which, despite massive effort, there is insufficient definitive evidence to support.
OR a lab leak of some kind for which there is a mountain of corroborating evidence – but for which we are never likely to find the definitive evidence either. But in this case because the guilty parties have determined we must not look for it.
And that anyone who does is to be smeared as a medieval, witch-burning ignoramus.
There was always one sure fire way to have proven me wrong.
I’ve little interest in proving that you are wrong – that’s not what motivates me.
But in this case because the guilty parties have determined we must not look for it.
In this instance, scientists and other 'investigators' who assume there must be "guilty parties" are rather giving their game away – I prefer to remain open-minded, but understand that's not for everyone.
And that anyone who does is to be smeared as a medieval, witch-burning ignoramus.
Such wonderfully colourful hyperbole – more please.
Regardless of whether you personally favor the “spillover” or “lab leak” theory, it’s important to keep an open mind and consider any new evidence that comes to light. This is the very essence of the scientific process. Science is not a set of fixed facts, but an ever-evolving process of testing, questioning, and updating what we know based on new information. Beware of anyone so entrenched in their beliefs that they would never change their mind regardless of new evidence. This is a good indicator that their beliefs are not based on science.
I was paraphrasing that from the article Incognito linked to in the comment which kicked off this thread. I thought it a little over the top too.
At every point I have been scrupulous to note that both the spillover and lab-leak hypothesis are valid choices from a purely scientific perspective. Yet at this point in time I do not believe the evidence we do have to hand supports them equally.
Nor for all the reasons I have already touched on, do I consider them 'equivalent' hypothesis. COVID as just another spillover event happily aligns with the interests of a great many professional people who lead and control our medical and public health systems.
COVID as a lab-leak by contrast holds a much darker prospect for many of these same people. Show me the incentives – and I will show you the outcomes.
it’s important to keep an open mind and consider any new evidence that comes to light. This is the very essence of the scientific process. Science is not a set of fixed facts, but an ever-evolving process of testing, questioning, and updating what we know based on new information.
That would be nice, but frankly when I reflect on the broad public debate I see quite the opposite in play – people locked into positionality and refusing to so much as look at the evidence for the case they are opposed to.
As far as I am concerned the spillover case is perfectly possible but so far despite almost 3yrs of highly motivated effort, definitive and convincing evidence remains elusive.
The lab-leak case by contrast could have been definitively proven or disproven 3yrs ago with a full and transparent investigation. The fact that the relevant authorities have prevented this rather gives their game away – and as far as I am concerned quite fairly speaks to their guilt.
At every point I have been scrupulous to note that both the spillover and lab-leak hypothesis are valid choices from a purely scientific perspective. Yet at this point in time I do not believe the evidence we do have to hand supports them equally.
Agree 100% – mine has always been "a purely scientific perspective". That's the reason I don't much credit the idea that a secret cabal of "a great many professional people who lead and control our medical and public health systems" is actively concealing the truth. Tbh, that idea seems relatively fantastic to me – much less likely than (for example) the idea that a great many professionals are simply mistaken.
I mean, just how big is this group of professionals that might be trying to cover up the truth? Thousands? Tens of thousands? While the lab leak hypothesis remains a possibility, I reckon the idea that a conspiracy of experts is concealing the truth about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 will eventually be consigned to the fringes, much like the idea that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job.
That's the reason I don't give much credence to the idea that a secret cabal
The problem for this argument is that it is no longer much of a secret. In recent months much of how this was done has now become common knowledge, which is why this topic has re-surfaced now.
Medicine, as you likely well know, is a very hierarchal profession and it is not hard for a relatively small handful of elites at the top to impose their agenda. Especially when they control research funding, professional registrations, – most especially when they have a great deal of collective credibility at stake.
A though-provoker is somebody who’s interested in genuine debate. A provocateur is not. I’m interested in genuine debate with people who have an open-mind and when they talk about science they mean science, for example.
Medicine, as you likely well know, is a very hierarchal profession and it is not hard for a relatively small handful of elites at the top to impose their agenda. Especially when they control research funding, professional registrations…
From my point of view, you seem to be slipping further down the 'SARS-CoV-2 lab leak origin' rabbit hole.
You're now suggesting that “a relatively small handful [as opposed to a relatively large handful – care to take a punt at how many?] of elite medics used threats and intimidation to quash alternative narratives.
Well, if that is indeed the case, then, despite all their power, this small handful of controlling elites hasn't done a very good job. Maybe that's because they are a "relatively small handful" – you know, like the famously small hands of (then) President Trump.
At a press conference on April 30, 2020, Trump said the administration had evidence showing Covid-19 came from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, although he declined to provide specifics. “I can’t tell you that. I’m not allowed to tell you that,” Trump said.
Days later, on May 3, Pompeo told ABC’s “This Week” that there was “enormous evidence” that Covid-19 came from the lab.
"Enormous evidence" – 3 years ago! Why are we still debating this?
Frankly whenever I come across someone using the word 'misinformation' these days I assume they are attempting to force the debate to a predetermined outcome. Disingenuous at best; more commonly a borderline authoritarian censorship tactic. It certainly does not suggest someone interested in investigating the science in an even-handed manner.
And in case you had not noticed, Trump is no longer President. Quoting three year old statements is a tactic that suggests either you are not up to speed with the current developments, or less charitably you are attempting a smear by political association to Donald Trump – a figure with precious little relevance to the debate other than being a handy well-poisoner.
The officials and agencies quoted in my link well above – that I assume you did not bother to read – all work for the Biden Administration. And they too clearly indicate there is sufficient reason to take the lab-leak thesis seriously.
If you choose not to inform yourself with the excuse that it is 'all some conspiracy minded rabbit-hole' – then I feel no obligation to re-type out here the mass of information available to a man with your evident search engine skills.
"Enormous evidence" – 3 years ago! Why are we still debating this?
Well if for the sake of argument we allow that Pompeo is correct, it is clear that he is referring to evidence of a circumstantial or corroborating nature – because as we both understand the Chinese authorities have never permitted a proper, transparent investigation. Nor for that matter certain figures in the US Administration who were indirectly funding coronavirus research at WIV.
And as Director of the CIA we might hazard a guess that Pompeo had a higher security clearance than you or me, and that if he assessed three years ago the information available to him as a "mountain of evidence" – then who are we to quibble? Especially when this claim has been largely confirmed by numerous independent researchers and various US govt agencies subsequently.
I can sympathise with your predicament. If you feel a life-long attachment and respect for the medical and science establishment, claims of their malfeasance will not be welcomed by you. I get it.
But the game you are playing here is obvious; you cannot produce definitive science evidence to support your preferred spillover thesis, instead all of your energy goes into various slippery tactics to discredit the alternative. Frankly I am losing interest in this fast.
I can sympathise with your predicament. If you feel a life-long attachment and respect for the medical and science establishment, claims of their malfeasance will not be welcomed by you. I get it.
I don't think you do, and can only repeat that in matters scientific, I tend to rely on evolving consensus expert opinion. Re alleged "malfeasance", my "predicament" is entirely in your own head.
Btw, is it "a small handful of elites", or the (much broader) "medical and science establishment" that stands accused of "malfeasance"?
But the game you are playing here is obvious; you cannot produce definitive science evidence to support your preferred lab leak thesis, instead all of your energy goes into various slippery tactics to discredit the alternative. Frankly I am losing interest in this fast.
Fwiw, I'm not trying to discredit the lab leak hypothesis any more than you are trying to discredit zoonotic emergence – it's simply that, based on available evidence, I (and many others) simply don't find 'a lab leak', even an accidental leak, as persuasive as zoonotic emergence. I suggest that we agree to disagree on the most likely origins of SARS-CoV-2, and hope that will not prove too difficult for you.
Lastly, it's a bit rich for you to assert that all of my energy "goes into various slippery tactics" – I had hoped you might have grown out of your habit of slurring those who disagree with your convictions, but your comment @6:06 pm put paid to those hopes.
Medicine, as you likely well know, is a very hierarchal profession and it is not hard for a relatively small handful of elites at the top to impose their agenda. Especially when they control research funding, professional registrations…
This is fanciful nonsense that does the lab leak hypothesis no favours – it's effectively piling a conspiracy theory on an (imho) already weak hypothesis, hence my reply (@5:29 pm):
From my point of view, you seem to be slipping further down the 'SARS-CoV-2 lab leak origin' rabbit hole.
I get it – you genuinely believe that the lab leak hypothesis is the best explanation for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic – that's fine.
But if you can't make a decent case for a lab leak without invoking "malfeasance" on the part of a small global cabal of medical elites, then disinterested readers might wonder about the quality of your evidence.
Make up your mind as to what you are doing here. Otherwise this is just gaslighting.
What I'm doing in this thread is providing links to support my contention that zoonotic emergence is currently the best explanation for the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Not the only explanation, but still the best of the competing explanations, pending further evidence. You have a different opinion, and yet it seems that agreeing to disagree is a step to far for you.
It took me 20 min to find serious problems with all three of those references. For the sake of brevity I will deal with just the second one led by Frutos. In Sec 2.1 the possibility of a lab leak is dismissed with this argument:
This is a simple and straightforward selective and evolutionary process. RmYN02 also carries an indel at the same place as the furin site (PRRA) indel of SARS-CoV-2 with the insertion of a PAA sequence and the deletion of the immediate QTQT upstream sequence (Zhou et al., 2020b). The naturally occurring PAAR sequence displayed by RmYN02 is not active as a furin-cleavage site but is only one mutation away from the active RNNR furin cleavage site. One additional mutation turning the proline (P) into an arginine (R) will generate a RAAR active furin-cleavage site. This suggests that viruses other than SARS-CoV-2 were under similar selective pressure.
The selection of SARS-CoV-2 through successive passages in cell culture was refuted (Andersen et al., 2020). Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology denied having carried out engineering and gain of function experiments on SARS-CoV-2but only on SARS-CoV in published and openly displayed international collaborations (Cohen, 2020). Altogether, these elements indicate that there is no evidence to support the hypothesis of a man-made origin of SARS-CoV-2.
The critical idea that COVID might have evolved from RmYN02 is cast heavily into doubt in this paper:
RaTG13, MP789 and RmYN02 are among SARS-CoV-2′s closest relatives and therefore of utmost importance as key tools for inferring SARS-CoV-2′s phylogenetic relationships and to identifying SARS-CoV-2′s specific genetic features, with the final aim of uncovering its origin. These sequences have been widely used to support a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 but after a close examination, all of them exhibit issues which should be specifically addressed and clarified.
Not so clear cut after all.
Then there is the second para that somewhat bizarrely relies on Anderson (who was conflicted all to hell and back due to his direct financial involvement at WIV, and whose presence on the WHO 'investigation' highly contributed to it being widely regarded as a farce.)
And then even more bizarrely relies on the word of WIV that they were not conducting 'gain of function' experiments, when just a few years earlier they were publishing papers claiming exactly this.
And just to insult our intelligence it is implied that the WIV public database could be relied upon to be a full and complete record of every virus they worked with. You know – the same database WIV yanked from the public domain on 12 Sept 2019 and has never been made available since.
If a dumbarse non-specialist like me can unearth such elementary logical problems under my own steam with only the smallest amount of effort – I'm not impressed.
This is fanciful nonsense that does the lab leak hypothesis no favours
Ask the nurses, clinicians and practitioners world wide who have found themselves out of a job or had their registration revoked because they held a dissenting view about vaccines. Or the prominent researchers who suddenly found their papers were being rejected by journal editors before even going to peer review.
Or the commonplace experience of seeing anything arbitrarily deemed ‘misinformation’ yanked off social media.
Or the tens of millions of us who were sneered at, mocked, censored or gaslit because our experience did not fall into line with 'safe and effective' for some reason.
'Fanciful' my arse. The establishment went into overdrive covering it’s butt on this one.
Late at night I mixed up Andersen and Daszak. Daszak of course worked for the now notorious EcoHealth Alliance that was used as the cutout middleman to enable NIH to fund WIV to perform GoF style research, explicitly banned by the Obama administration. Initially received as an expert, his credibility crumbled as his hopeless conflicts of interest became more apparent.
Andersen – is neck deep in this is a somewhat different way. It is his often cited "Proximal Origins" paper in March 2020 has gained notoriety because an email chain between him and Fauci, starting late at night on the 31 Jan 2020 has a group of these people all suddenly realising that this new virus really could be a lab leak and that something needs to be done to dampen this speculation down.
The immediate outcome was a paper that has been heavily criticised and has become the subject of Congressional inquiry. This article goes into the detail:
The core problem is that this was always a highly specialised field, with probably fewer than 100 people in the world truly across all the relevant material and with hands-on experience. But as the only experts they are also completely conflicted – which makes depending on anything they say inherently problematic.
Imagine an Inquiry into say the collapse of a major engineering structure such as a bridge. Absolutely the engineers who designed it would be required to give a full and complete accounting of their entire design process – but there would also be no difficulty in finding respected independent engineers to assist and advise the Inquiry. But the same is not quite as true for highly specialised fields like this – especially when there are networks of funding and professional links that entangle almost everyone.
Having said this – there are plenty of highly qualified people with more than enough knowledge of virology who looked at this entire business of genetically manipulating virus's in the lab who have long said the risks far outweighed any potential benefits. This is precisely why the Obama administration had placed a moratorium on this type of research in the first place.
And I think events proved this precaution entirely correct. And those who intentionally side-stepped it should be held to account.
Your bridge analogy is deeply flawed in this context.
Why?
In the aftermath of the ChCh earthquakes there was a proper investigation into the collapse of the ITV building. Any workplace accident will be investigated; medical people who act recklessly resulting in harm or death can be expected to be investigated.
But what does not happen is that we allow the people involved to effectively conduct the investigation into themselves. Nor any related party or with a conflict of interest. The investigators are required to be independent and seen to be so.
Or the commonplace experience of seeing anything arbitrarily deemed ‘misinformation’ yanked off social media.
Or the tens of millions of us who were sneered at, mocked, censored or gaslit because our experience did not fall into line with 'safe and effective' for some reason.
'Fanciful' my arse. The establishment went into overdrive covering it’s butt on this one.
Thanks Red, that helped me understand your PoV. Enjoy your day.
If you are defending a group of scientists who might have been culpable for the deaths of some 20 million people – and 3 yrs later have still managed to evade open, transparent scrutiny, much less be held to any account – then I think you are way too complacent.
Good-oh. Not me though – my PoV inflluences the content of my comments, and indeed whether or not I choose to comment at all.
If you are defending a group of scientists who might have been culpable for the deaths of some 20 million people – and 3 yrs later have still managed to evade open, transparent scrutiny, much less be held to any account – then I think you are way too complacent.
Am I defending a small global confederacy of elite medics/scientists – who are they? 'Might" suggests that you haven't convicted these elites yet, which is encouragingly open-minded, particularly given the paucity of strong evidence – new evidence will likely come to light over time.
20 million is a lot; I recall some Standardistas questioning the accuracy of the COVID-19 death toll, and even the duration of the pandemic in its early months – but PoVs can change with time and new evidence.
COVID-19 as a Mass Death Event[PDF]
There are concerns that the failure of governments to manage the material and affective aspects of the pandemic may accelerate fascist or populist movements; that it may unsettle and expose the neoliberal assumptions of trade-offs in politics and economics; and that it may intensify nationalism, xenophobia, and democratic backsliding. All of these concerns highlight the ways COVID-19 is challenging and transforming our world and worldview(s).
Analysing these changes through the narrow lens of state-centric politics and multifaceted mitigation in the pursuit of an immediate return to something called normal – ignoring the multiplicity of injustices, inequities, and inequalities upon which “normal” life is founded and that COVID-19 magnifies – ultimately limits our collective imaginative ability to consider the transformative moment brought about by the pandemic.
There is no guarantee that the post-COVID-19 world will be necessarily more ethical or laudable than the present one. Thinking clearly and carefully about the specific experience of mass death brought on by COVID-19, however, seems to be a prerequisite to imagining a more ethically desirable future after the pandemic.
As usual you reply with a handful of sentences of your own, then pad out the rest of the comment with a wall of multiple references. References have their place, but all too often I sense you hide behind them, not clearly stating your argument. But to work with what little you have offered:
'Might" suggests that you haven't convicted these elites yet, which is encouragingly open-minded, particularly given the paucity of strong evidence – new evidence will likely come to light over time.
Again returning to the two thesis in play here, spillover or lab-leak. We agree there is no definitive evidence to support either, but very different reasons.
Spillover lacks definitive evidence because despite a highly motivated effort to find it, nothing convincing has been found. Lab-leak lacks definitive evidence because despite a mountain of circumstantial and corroborative evidence – we have not been allowed to look for the smoking gun – by the very people implicated in this research.
The two cases are not equivalent at all. Spillover, given all the 2020's genomic high tech and resources thrown at it, should have been a relatively straightforward matter to establish on purely science grounds. You can hide behind 'maybe it will come to light in time', but as each year passes that prospect dims. How many more years do you propose waiting? Another three, a decade or more? At some point this argument will expire.
By contrast obtaining lab-leak thesis evidence was stifled by ill-intent right from the outset, not just by Chinese authorities, but right from the top in the US and across a network of highly conflicted individuals. None of this is speculation, we now have sufficient documentation to confirm this suspicion.
From a judicial perspective the lab-leak prosecution can present, means, opportunity, and guilty action to cover up the crime. Not to mention that mountain of corroboration.
As usual you reply with a handful of sentences of your own, then pad out the rest of the comment with a wall of multiple references. References have their place, but all too often I sense you hide behind them, not clearly stating your argument.
My 'argument' is that zoonotic emergence is the most likely SARS-CoV-2 origin hypothesis. I sense that many proponents of the lab leak hypothesis are politically motivated and/or conspiracy theorists.
COVID-19 conspiracies soar after latest report on origins
[2 March 2023]
“The vast majority of the evidence continues to support natural origin,” Rasmussen told The Associated Press Wednesday. “I’m a scientist. I need to see the evidence rather than take the FBI director’s word for it.”
Spillover lacks definitive evidence because despite a highly motivated effort to find it, nothing convincing has been found.
The small global confederacy of elite medics and scientists must be doing a tremendous job of motivating their army of (ignorant?) expert minions to look for evidence of zoonotic emergence. Or do you believe that the minions are also aware of the truth, and this "highly motivated effort" is nothing more than a massive orchestrated smokescreen?
Spillover, given all the 2020's genomic high tech and resources thrown at it, should have been a relatively straightforward matter to establish on purely science grounds. You can hide behind 'maybe it will come to light in time', but as each year passes that prospect dims. How many more years do you propose waiting? Another three, a decade or more? At some point this argument will expire.
Really – "a relatively straightforward matter"? OK, you know best. Personally, I'd give it another 5 years of scientific investigation – it's important to get this rigtht. More evidence will come to light, and if consensus expert opinion shifts to favour the lab leak hypothesis, then my opinion will shift, in line with evidence-based open-mindedness.
Re "highly motivated" – never have truer words been written
Do you recall back in Feb 2020 how the CCP tightly locked down all domestic travel inside China, while at the same time demanding that all other nations continue to allow travel internationally? Some of their more noxious spokespeople insisting it would be 'racist' not to do so. And thereby ensuring that any remaining chance of containing the outbreak would be lost.
Do you not recall this act of vile perfidy? And why would any sane person give these people the slightest benefit of the doubt in the light of this?
Do you recall back in Feb 2020 how the CCP tightly locked down all domestic travel inside China, while at the same time demanding that all other nations continue to allow travel internationally?
I recall domestic travel restrictions (in/out of Wuhan) from 23 Jan 2020, but not the "demanding that all other nations continue to allow travel internationally" bit (link?) – funny how one's mind can play tricks.
How did other nations respond to the CCP's demands, do you know?
These countries have imposed China travel restrictions over the coronavirus [7 Feburary 2020]
New Zealand (As of Feb. 7)
Passengers who have transited through or have been in mainland China on or after Feb. 2 won’t be allowed to transit or enter New Zealand. New Zealand nationals, residents and their immediate families will be allowed entry but will be required to self-isolate for a period of 14 days from their arrival.
AP FACT CHECK: Trump and the virus-era China ban that isn’t [19 July 2020]
Few doubt that the heavy death toll from COVID-19 would be even heavier if world travel had not been constricted globally. But Trump has no scientific basis to claim that his action alone saved “millions” or even “hundreds of thousands” of lives, as he has put it.
Some groups, e.g. COVID Plan B, agitated for a relaxation of border controls early on, and such public health measures also inconvenienced many Kiwis temporarily stranded overseas.
So , a lab intends to insert the very mechanism into a virus that makes it super transmissible between humans
The novel virus makes its first ever appearance in the human population close to the lab and proceeds to travel quickly to the point we have a pandemic
That this happened naturally depends on a intermediary host
So, the or a lab did insert the furin cleavage site, according to your belief. Problem is that the scientific evidence is controversial and disputed and hardly constitutes evidence for your preferred hypothesis belief.
Do you want to discuss the pro & con of the scientific arguments or do you want to deal in conspiracy stuff? If the former, I don’t think you have what it takes. If the latter, you’re right at home.
Written with no awareness that conspiracy theory creation is part of psychological warfare operations (CIA …)
The Russians used the psychiatric institution gulag in Siberia and there is a western version – taking people out of the (Kansas) city to the (Missouri) country side cult (a joke about Joseph Smith believing paradise was in Missouri).
It would be interesting to see an informed debate over the relative pros and cons of the undergrad health science degree + 4 year medical degree model proposed by Waikato, against the 'traditional' 6 year medical degree (1 yr health science + 5 years medicine) at Auckland/Otago.
Lane provides figures to show that the proposed Waikato model is at least 25% cheaper per graduate – even though it takes 1 year longer. Is the 'quality' equivalent?
It seems as though it's the cost per student that the government is jibbing at (or at least, I can't think of any other reason) – so a mechanism to reduce the cost seems like a strategic winner.
Until we see a detailed proposal and plan, all we have is rumour, speculation, and talking points. This might be good enough for National but not for real decisions that are evidence-based.
To Incfognito, I thought it was a very good article, balanced and reasonable. It bought to mind the story as to why the post WW1 pandemic was called the Spanish Flu, it was purportedly because only the Spanish newspapers were able to report on it as the combatant countries were under strict wartime censorship. I was also under the impression that the contagion originated somewhere in the Mid-West in an army training camp just before the troops there were deployed to Europe. Hmmm, wouldn't want that knowledge getting out eh.
The Inland Revenue report will, nonetheless, hand Labour a large dilemma: if, as expected, it shows very low tax rates at the top end, the government will either have to do something about it and face a massive political fight, or explicitly say it will do nothing to right the injustice its own research has identified.
Dear Mr Rashbrooke, there is a third option that will guaranteed to be the preferred one by Labour and National alike: seek non-partisan support across the centre (aka across the floor). Since we all know that this is as hard to find as a unicorn winter grazing in a paddock both parties will embrace this ‘solution’ and ‘look good’ – a win-win.
A surprising admission from a former Minister of Finance
She is of the view that increases in incomes derive from inflation, rather than from wage share of profit. Is this based on the idea that profit is (or should be) directed to owners rather than workers?
How can finance ministers be trusted to fight inflation when, thanks to bracket creep, they profit from it?
Her other argument is that none of the proceeds from economic growth (bracket creep) should be shared with the government sector. Given the aging of the population – rising health cost and their (until Cullen – and no National Minister has placed money into the NZS Fund) lack of provision for the rising cost of super is frankly irresponsible.
Richardson is a little disingenuous, as expected. For example, somebody on a minimum wage has to work well over 40 h/week for 52 weeks a year to even touch the $48k threshold. She also failed to mention the role of the independent RBNZ in controlling inflation. True to form, she points to Government spending causing inflation, which is another misleading argument. Honestly, I cannot be bothered even trying to counter Richardson’s spin – you can tell it is Election Year when the old rusty tanks get rolled out, making their creaky & squeaky sounds through well-worn cogs & sprockets and let’s hope the wheels don’t start falling off. The Onion seems to have a finger in many pies.
However, you don't have to be very far above minimum wage ($22.70) to hit the 48,000 for 40/52 weeks – it's $23.08.
Every local restaurant job earns at least this (or they don't get staff), roading workers are way above, as are bus drivers. Apart from McDonalds, or very part-time supermarket shelf-stacking – you're not going to find any jobs in Auckland paying less than $23 (even if they're advertising lower, they just won't get any applicants).
Indexing tax rates to average wage is something that's long overdue – and a failure from both major political parties.
I’d be (pleasantly?) surprised if the Bread & Butter Budget-2023 contained any changes to the lower tax brackets that would take effect in the foreseeable future.
1. a statement in the budget this year of the first threshold change for 1 April 2024. Every worker gets the same $500 cut in income tax next year.
2. then go into the campaign with a policy of threshold adjustments that are income tax neutral.
But add a provision if there was a coalition deal with Greens that included a wealth tax, then the money would allow adjustments reducing income tax in all threshold bands.
The point to show greater responsibility than NACT. And a better deal for the many.
Australia vs NZ tax on income (OZ is green NZ is blue)
0-18,000 at 0% vs 0 to 14,500 at 10.5 % and 14.501 – 18.000 at 17.5%
(NZ taxes the first 18 grand up to 17.5 % higher then OZ which stands at 0 tax, something that would benefit part time workers/casual workers and low income workers even tho high incomes will also benefit)
18.001 – 45.000 at 19% vs 14.500 – 48.000 at 17.5%
(agree this is a similar tax rate and the only one were taxes are higher then in NZ)
45.000 to 120,000 at 32.5% vs45,0001 to 70,000 at 30% and 70.001 – 90.000 at 33% and 90.001 – 120.000 at 35%
(it seems to me that the OZ tax is less complex and overall better for the worker)
120.001-180.000 at 37% vs90.000 – 180.000 at 35%
(now here OZ has more tax income than NZ and in NZ we are charging that higher rate to lower income)
over 180,000 at 45% vs over 180,000 at 39%
(OZ charges the higher incomes a much higher tax rate then NZ)
We are not close at all. We are quite opposite. We have a bloated system that makes no exemption for low income worker but looks well after those on high incomes.
For the record I have been advocating for 0 tax on the first 25 grand earned as that is still the minimum for a rental to pay for a while now – since the John Key years publicly here and have been told that it would be too complicated, only benefit rich people blablabla.
Sadly the current government will not change the tax code to benefit the low income worker.
Our low income earner rebate could be adjusted (it's for those working who have no children and thus cannot get WFF tax credits).
It's currently $10 a week and operates between $24,000 and $48,000. . It could be larger start lower and go higher (to the median wage c$60,000). That's the alternative to a zero free zone (thus none of the amount goes to those on more than $60,000 that more than halves the cost).
stop with the tinkering and go 0 tax on the first 25.000 grand. If OZ can do that, why can't we.
our income tax punished the low income earner and gives a well greased handshake to the well to do, but in saying that, i can totes see why Grant Robertson will no more increase his tax burden then would Chris Luxon or Mr. Seymour. Cause they like their low taxes.
So you want to help those on the lowest income threshhold but only in way that also lines the pockets of those on above median wage incomes. Which more than doubles the cost. Who pays for this – the poor dependent on a run down health system (as they have no medical insurance)?
Oz has higher income tax rates over 18,000 than we do, to afford it. They also have CGT and a land tax and stamp duty.
The difference between you and me is that i don't care about purity. Firstly.
Secondly, yes, taking the taxes on the first 25 grand to 0 will equally benefit the higher income earner as they also would not have to pay taxes on that amount. And here is where OZ has shown us the way, they charge a higher income tax at the higher end,
see here
120.001-180.000 at 37% vs 90.000 – 180.000 at 35% – OZ being 2% higher here
and
over 180,000 at 45% vs over 180,000 at 39% – OZ being 6 % higher here.
In fact we could dump our system and copy the OZ system, full stop. It would benefit the lower income and raise taxes on the rich. Ka-ching, bingo, we have a winner here. And no one has to think it up either, we just copy!
But we will not do such a thing because neither Grant Roberston, nor Chris Luxon, nor Mr. Seymour will change their tax rate to cost them more of their earnings. No siree, why would they.
So yes, go OZ well done, you are charging the rich to give a few more pennies to the poor. Well done, Sadly it can't won't be done in NZ cause we are buys finding excuses as to why not, and because we can't even imagine rich people like our Parliamentarian Critters to pay their fair share. So sad!
The Green Party is calling on the Government to tax the super wealthy as inflation, largely driven by continued increases in the cost of essentials like food and housing, persists.
Mr Rashbrooke notes "The radical becomes respectable" and "bad ideas don’t stand up to scrutiny. But, as a corollary, the good ones eventually win out."
“Inflation hits lower-income families the hardest, who spend the majority of their income covering the essentials like food and rent. Wealth and income inequality in this country is a political choice. The Government needs to act,” says Green Party revenue spokesperson Chlöe Swarbrick.
“The solution is taxing wealth and excess profits and using that money to help people. This makes the most sense in the context of the approximately trillion-dollar wealth transfer to the wealthiest throughout COVID-19.
“Last year the Reserve Bank admitted in response to my questioning that they are engineering a recession to try and rein in inflation.
“We know this will disproportionately impact low income people in Aotearoa. It doesn’t have to be like this. This is only happening because the Government isn't acting.
“Reducing government spending on essential public services would be a mistake at a time when we know our crucial infrastructure across health, housing, education, the environment, and transport desperately needs investment.
“Instead of relying on the Reserve Bank to use blunt monetary policy like raising the OCR, or manufacturing a recession, the Government can tax the super wealthy.
“Instead of allowing trickle-down economic thinking to drive economic policy that perversely pushes people out of work, the Government can tax the rich and build a fairer society,” says Chlöe Swarbrick.
I agree, but I suspect that most Green Party voters are not among the most affected and frankly, I cannot see this changing much before October, if ever.
One hopes a certain red-hued faction seizes the nettle and returns to their roots, if one can forgive the mixed garden metaphors; seems appropriate for advice coming from the Greens.
Amongst the mountains of dross on television, there are little nuggets of gold. I caught the tail end of Studio B: Unscripted on Al Jazeera this morning.
Titled "The deadly word, freedom: Brian Eno and Ha-Joon Chang" (Pt 1), many on this site would find common ground with this very interesting discussion.
Also on YouTube.
As co-founder of EarthPercent, Eno focuses his artistry and years of activism on galvanizing the music industry and beyond to find creative techniques for tackling climate change.
In his best-selling books, including Kicking Away the Ladder and Bad Samaritans, Chang busts one mainstream economic myth after another and in his latest book, Edible Economics, one ingredient at a time. They explore creativity, taste buds, artificial intelligence and climate change, offering successive takedowns of the status quo and paths to a fairer society.
The USA Supreme Court is allowing the continued supply by mail of an abortion pill, overturning a Court of Appeal ruling that required collection visits while a case over the legality of the pills (on the dubious grounds of process to authorise their use, as per safety, when the pills now have a decades long real world safety record) is on-going.
Basically conservative judges, in states set to ban abortions, are being targeted by abortion opponents to ban the pill nationwide. One suspects however (sans SCOTUS finding in their favour) that the real political agenda is to legislate a federal ban on movement of the pill into states with abortion bans (it's a reprise of the underground railroad scenario of the 19thC).
The same people also oppose funding for Family Planning (contraceptive pills, condoms and morning after pills), sex education in schools and fertility treatment.
Headsup that the Mobile version of TS has been turned off for now because it was causing too many problems. We can still use the Desktop version on a mobile device, but some people won't be able to comment from there. Sorry about that, but all posts should be able to be read now.
If you are on a mobile device and can't comment from the Desktop version, can you please reply below with details, cheers.
Edit, I can make a new comment from the Desktop version but I can’t usually reply.
Yes I am using desktop version. Haven't been able to access the mobile version for some time now. And no I wasn't able to comment on some occasions. Click on reply button, but no keyboard 😕
@ Muttonbird, I lifted your ban @ 8:20 pm. I checked and I can’t see why your comments are still ending up in Trash. Apologies for the inconvenience, but this is above my pay-grade.
Yes, you’re right, it does seem that way. So, MB may be good to go, phew! Otherwise, they’ll just have to wait for Lynn – there’s nothing else I can do here.
Russia, a terror state where elderly women are fined twice their monthly pension for saying Zelensky is handsome, single fathers imprisoned and their child returned to her long estranged mother for producing an antiwar drawing and where dissident journalists are sentenced to 25 years in prison for being, of course, dissident journalists.
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
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Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
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Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
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On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
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Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
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Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
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This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
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Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
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Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
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Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
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Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
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Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
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Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
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The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
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Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
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Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
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The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
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The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
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The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
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Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
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Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
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Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
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In 1995, Sally Clark went out on her own in a bold and unorthodox attempt to join an illustrious group of equestrian riders conquering the world. In the days of glovebox road maps, brick cell phones, and the hit song How Bizarre, Clark refused to follow Sir Mark Todd, Blyth ...
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To celebrate the start of New Zealand music month, we look back at the best local tuneage that managed to weasel its way into Hollywood productions. There’s nothing quite like the thrilling zap of recognition when New Zealand weasels its way into a glamorous Hollywood production. Crack open a Tui ...
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A warning – suicide is discussed in this podcast New Zealand’s own long-running soap Shortland Street doesn’t hesitate to kill off its much-loved characters. But would TVNZ dare to kill off our favourite soap? That’s the fear as times get tough in television – even though it’s been pointed out ...
The best news I have had in quite a while:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/488449/australia-announces-pathway-to-citizenship-for-new-zealanders
Credit where it is due to both govts; finally some common sense prevails.
Amazing what progress can be made when governments quietly sit down and talk about issues rather than political posturing and grandstanding through the media, something the centre-right parties of both countries seem unable to do.
Citizenship will allow voting, access to benefits, housing and tertiary education support for children (someone in Oz Labour wants re-election).
And the Oz pension and access to their health system in retirement is appealing to longer term guest workers.
The greater certainty provided will make employment there more attractive to Kiwis as we enter a worker shortage era (something their mandarins would have noted).
The main change for older Oz based kiwis is the right to vote. Younger kiwis who work there and opt for Oz citizenship after 4 years will then have the same rights as Australian citizens already have in NZ. The changes just reverse the mean (but politically targeted) policy brought in by the Howard government in 2001. NZ and Oz have a reciprocal social security arrangement so anyone applying for super in NZ or age pension in Oz and have spent time in both countries get a contribution from both Centrelink (Oz) and MSD (NZ) so that the total is equivalent to the applicable pension in the country the person lives. No change with the new policy.
There are 70,000 Australians resident in NZ, so based on the relative population sizes, equivalent to 350,000 NZers in Oz. That means that there are twice as many kiwis in Oz as Aussies in NZ on a comparable basis.
OK. I thought they might have got the slightly higher Oz payment. Just the better resourced health system then.
Again, NZ and Oz citizens get reciprocal health rights in each country, so if you are a NZer in Oz or an Aussie in NZ you get the right to use each other's health system – if you want to get a Medicare card in Oz as a NZer you have to say you want to live there, which is pretty easy. You then may get free doctor's visits if you can access a doc that allows bulk billing. The Oz health system is under similar strains as NZ even if it is in better condition overall. Many GPs now are rejecting bulk billing unless the subsidy they get from the federal government is bumped up (it stayed the same for many years of Coalition government). The centre left Labor government in Oz has the same challenge as NZ – how to pay for better infrastructure or maintain creaking current infrastructure without finding ways of creating a fairer tax system. The easier pathway for NZers to get Aussie citizenship will not affect their access to health care at all (but will make kiwis in Oz feel more secure for the future in a more general way).
The actual total of Kiwis in Oz appears to be quite a bit higher.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/131834539/australia-to-let-kiwis-become-citizens-after-four-years-in-major-policy-shift
That would be right – as I said above, the percentage of Aussies in NZ compared to the NZ population would be equivalent to 350,000 NZers in Oz, so the fact that there are 700,000 kiwis in Oz means that there are twice as many in comparison. Not sure of the numbers but think the percentage of Maori kiwis in Oz is even higher in proportion. However, that is just a reflection of the fact that people move when they think they can get a better deal when they are permitted to do so. No doubt Maori ancestors from what is now Raetea and the French Poly Society Islands thought the same back in the 1300s when they sailed to Aotearoa!
That is a good point – I made much the same rough calculation myself a few years back and came to much the same conclusion. The idea that trans-Tasman migration is all a one-way street is a bit of a myth.
In fact there are scarcely two nations on earth socially and economically more entangled than Aus and NZ. It has only been the political realm that we have drifted apart in recent decades.
This move hopefully signals a reversal of that trend.
Brian Easton on the money again…concluding with
"Explaining how the government has got itself into such a muddle requires another column. It will tell us much about deep structural failures in the government."
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/watering-down-three-waters
Brian Easton has given a clear analysis of the Three Waters debacle. His comments on co-governance (also on Pundit) are well worth reading.
I laughed when the PM said Three Waters had not been accepted by many because the reasons for it had not been communicated well enough.
It's like the Nazis saying their need for lebensraum had not been properly explained to the people of Eastern Europe.
You laughed because it reminded you, somehow, of the Nazis!?
People are shit scared the mawrees are going to get ownership/control of the water resources.
I hear this repeated a lot. Most recently in a conversation with two friends explaining the pushback against the Three Waters proposal.
While I see that some of the concerns expressed around the co-governance structure come from a place of frustration and/or racism, I think this framing of racism being the main reason for concerns is a form of racism itself.
The time for such co-governance structures was passed a long time ago.
We had many mechanisms for including necessary consultation with local iwi for resource consents, and Māori consultants at other levels of local and regional. councils. While some may have valid criticisms of this process, (which are duplicated by environmentalists who are in the same position) it was an implementation in a democratic society that did not impact on transparency, or duplicate needlessly the levels of administration in any organisation.
Māori are not a hive mind. Any representative selected to hold representative positions in the original proposal, were non-elected and non-accountable.
Has this changed?
Do you believe the representatives are non-accountable or do you assert that? Either way, there’s a clear contradiction in your comment.
There was a conversation on here a while ago where I posted the link to the original paper and discussed the lack of clarity over the way it was written:
.https://thestandard.org.nz/co-governance-is-orthodox-policy-for-both-national-and-labour/#comment-1923737
I posted the link to the bill (as it was) here:
.https://thestandard.org.nz/co-governance-is-orthodox-policy-for-both-national-and-labour/#comment-1924053
Here's the link:
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2022/0136/latest/whole.html?search=y_bill%40bill_2022__bc%40bcur_an%40bn%40rn_25_a#LMS538045
Section 32 seems to set a competence standard not replicated in Section 33.
There is no election of 33 representatives – just apptmts.
I assumed with the review and rebrand it may have changed, do you know if it has?
So, you’re deflecting and not answering my very basic and specific question to you and/or addressing the contradiction in your comment? Instead, you’re luring me into three links, no less. Quelle surprise – discussion with you here is futile!
Incognito, I asked a question of Ngungukai to which I thought he might have the answer since he specifically mentioned Māori co-governance.
Then answered your question with references to what was known before, so those with updated knowledge could clarify.
How can I know the answer to that without knowing if this part has been updated?
I was asking Ngungukai for information.
Your demand for a stated position before it was answered is a peculiar one.
Your practice of making comments berating style and commenters however is becoming a familiar one. There is an element to it that seems to have lost perspective.
So much deflection and twisting of my words.
I asked you to clarify something that was not a question in your comment to Ngungukai but a statement that representatives “were non-elected and non-accountable”.
This could be taken as an opinion or an assertion and you asked specifically:
So, was it your opinion or your assertion?
This was not a demand although Mods do sometimes moderate commenters to clarify their assertions and distinguish those from their opinions – they do this through Mod notes, as you know full well. This is nothing new and nothing personal.
Obviously, you cannot know Ngungukai’s answer. But you knew the premise of your final question, which was either your opinion or your assertion.
You see, I can read your comments without losing perspective – nice snide, BTW. There was no berating of your style even though I mentioned that there was a contradiction in that particular part of your comment, which was content-related, not style-related.
I don’t expect you to answer anymore. I don’t want to have to read through copious links and scroll through long copy & pasta from legal documents and Bills because that’s not what I asked for and I’ll never find it in there, and you know it. I was aiming for a simple clarification from you to a simple question of mine.
If you don’t want to give clarifications, don’t want to give answers to straightforward questions, or don’t want to engage in debate, that is perfectly fine unless specifically requested by a Mod – even then you still have a choice to comply or not. Simply say nothing. However, please don’t respond with deflections, twisting of words, or accusations because that’s a likely way of inflaming discourse.
Have a good evening.
It neither an opinion, or an assertion, it was my previous understanding.
Are you feeling adequately fulfilled now with my answer, to leave the offloading of frustration to some other instance? I doubt it, but will live in hope.
Of course, you don't want an answer. It appears instead you want the opportunity to wax lyrical, without any requirement to read someone else's lyrical waxing.
Wax On, Incognito. I may return but I'll wax off for now.
[I asked you not to respond with deflections, accusations, and twisting of words. Yet, your immediate response does exactly that!? This is your warning – Incognito]
Mod note
@Incognito
Question:
“So, was it your opinion or your assertion?”
Answer:
"It neither an opinion, or an assertion, it was my previous understanding."
Is this a brief and clear enough answer to your question?
Incognito, seconded.
and
Yes there was concern about the appointment process. This was despite the appointment process being used in planning work in local authorities where there has been provision for the representation from local iwi etc who were subject to selection from within the iwi then appointment not election.
In the new legislation (bill) there are these provisions
Clause 6 mana whenua, for an identified area, means the iwi or hapū holding and exercising, in accordance with tikanga, authority or other customary rights or interests in that area
1 Clause 33 Method of appointing mana whenua representatives to regional representative group
Mana whenua whose rohe or takiwā is within the service area of a water services entity must appoint mana whenua representatives to the regional representative group of the water services entity in accordance with section 27(2) and (3) and the constitution.
2 Clauses 27(2) & (3)
27 Establishment and membership of regional representative group
(1) This section establishes a regional representative group for each water services entity.
(2) Each regional representative group consists of a number of regional representatives that is provided for in the constitution (see section 91(a)(i)) and is—
(a) 12 regional representatives; or
(b) any greater number of regional representatives.
(3) Each entity’s regional representative group must include an equal number of—
(a) territorial authority representatives; and
(b) mana whenua representatives.
Clause 38 This group (Regional rep) then appoints a Board Appointment Committee
The Board Appointment committee has the functions to
Functions of board appointment committee
The functions of the board appointment committee are—
(a) to appoint and remove members of the board of a water services entity; and
(b) to prepare and maintain an appointment and remuneration policy for the board; and
(c) to perform or exercise any of the regional representative group’s functions and powers that are delegated to the committee in relation to appointing and removing board members.
Ok so having got the regional representatives who appoint the Board appts committee, this committee appoints the board.
57 Membership of board
(1) The board of a water services entity consists of no fewer than 6, and no more than 10, members.
(2) The board appointment committee must appoint board members who, collectively, have knowledge of, and experience and expertise in relation to,—
(a) performance monitoring and governance; and
(b) network infrastructure industries (for example, water services network infrastructure industries); and
(c) the principles of te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi; and
(ca) public health; and
(cb) the environment; and
(d) perspectives of mana whenua, mātauranga, tikanga, and te ao Māori; and
(e) perspectives of consumers and communities; and
(f) perspectives of local government.
Clause 63 sets out the
Criteria for appointments by board appointment committee
(1) A board appointment committee must appoint board members under section 62 in accordance with the criteria for board members and the process for appointment under this Act (including the appointment and remuneration policy (if any) approved by the regional representative group under section 40).
(2) The board appointment committee may only appoint a person who, in the committee’s opinion, has the appropriate knowledge, skills, and experience to assist the water services entity to achieve its objectives and perform its functions.
(3) In making an appointment, the board appointment committee must take into account the desirability of promoting diversity in the membership of the board.
The whole process seems to work by appointment. It seems now to have as many checks and balances as the US Constitution (kidding!)
What it seems to do, whuch seems bit novel compared with the original process is to build up to the appointment of the board (Water Services entity) or (flaxroots up) or in another way, popular in the 'olden days' of Board etc formation was the concept of a Steering Committee/Group having the power to appoint a Board/s that sat below them.and did all the day to day work.
I have not seen the explanations of how the new system works philosophically but to me either way from flaxroots up or from a Steering group having an important role would work in a being able to sell the concept.
ETA I've found this from the press release of 13/4.
The ability to choose people with skills seems a better fit than perhaps ethnically chosen but run off their feet because the skills may be thin on the ground.
The areas will be much larger than before and the appointment to the important Regional Representative groups (Local Authorities/Maori) that set in train the whole appt process will include different tribal groups.
I think I have got this set up correctly. Having worked with this Board type legislation for most of my working life I can see the imprint/influence of a different statutory drafting hand from what was originally drafted. The concept and clauses seem tighter, And more akin to board statutory legislation of old.
I cannot see any appointment time limits say for 5 years etc or a process to appoint to a vacancy in the mana whenua side should a death or resignation occur. I haven't looked very hard.
Hopefully this is some help.
ETA Sorry for all the quotes from legislation. It is an interesting way of working
Thanks, Shanreagh.
I'll see what else has changed. The was reference in the draft I looked at closely to an as yet unwritten (or unavailable) constitution.
I found the details around the mana whenua representatives required a lot of referencing back and forward, and still ended up with a poor understanding of what the bill intended in that respect.
I'd hoped someone who considered any concerns raised as "People are shit scared the mawrees" might have a firm grasp on this aspect, and be able to explain it.
I'll fumble through your link instead.
Yes, I mentioned that in my response to Ngungukai and still fully support that consulting role for the relevant knowledge as pertains to planning considerations etc. The one flaw that exists (which is true of any authority consultant relationship) is that as the relationship is established, consultants may become more attuned to the expectations of council and unconsciously adapt their contributions accordingly. Also, as those relationships strengthen – other discordant voices from mana whenua are not heard because there is already a representative at the table.
The concerns I had about the initial bill was that there was a requirement for other regional representatives to have experience or knowledge of water treatment systems, but none for the mana whenua representatives.
In that case, why are not retained as consultants, rather than given voting rights? There appeared to be no assessment of the value of knowledge they would bring in terms of the fundamental role of managing necessary infrastructure, before allocating them quite heavy influence on decision making, including that of veto.
But, as I said, I'll have to wade through. Thank you again.
It is a complex set up from the legislation.
I don't think anyone now could complain about too much Maori representation. It is there where it is most important I feel. The rep group (equal Maori/Local authority numbers) gets to set the Board Appointment Group, which gets to select the Boards.
Overnight I have had a think about terms of appointment and feel that is not as important as having a clear way of appointing replacements on resignation or death.
mod note:
1. don't copy and paste long tracts. Use your own words, selective quotes, and links. Long tracts are a problem for mobile users, and people end up using them in lieu of making a clear point.
2. when you copy and paste, you have to make it clear what are your words and what is the quote. In the edit box there is a tag (looks like a quotation mark), that will indent the quote. Let me know if you need help on how to use that. Or you can go old school
>>
like this
<<
Or
like this.
and so on.
This matters because mods have to read a lot of material, and I don't want to have to be stopping and figuring out what is what. It also matters so that people reading can be clear about what is being said.
_____
Please add this explanation to your list on commenting, and please let me know you have read and understood and if you have any questions.
I am assuming this is aimed at me. When the numbering has gone some of us have adopted the idea of going
@xys then copying in the time.
Sorry I should have continued to bold the clauses.
Or indent though I had thought that was for quoting from other commenter's posts.
I had thought that another way is to put my comments in italics..
I am not keen on putting in my own words actual clauses of draft legislation that depend on precision. I cannot do better at explaining than the legal draftspeople.
So move from particular (legislation) bolded or indented to opinion italicised.
Plus other helpful advice is noted.
here is an example of using italics for quotes/copypasta.
.https://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-12-04-2023/#comment-1945350
here is an example of using the quote tag.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-06-04-2023/#comment-1943927
Both Joe90 and arkie use their own consistent style in commenting, you might want to take note when you see their comments.
what's the difference? Both are opinion and we won't know whether it's true or not until someone clarifies with knowledge and evidence.
True.
That is why I tried to answer/comment/help by referring to the new legislation without needing to delve into semantics. It is complex but people who have been following will know of /recall Molly's concern about accountablility and how that was to be managed when people were appointed.
I appreciate the links. Still haven't yet had a look at the details yet.
I can redo it so the clauses and comments are clearly separated as comment of mine does appear in the middle of some of the clauses.
Ok so having got the regional representatives who appoint the Board appts committee, this committee appoints the board.
I'gr0 (message from cat!)
I am sorry I did not do all these helpful formatting ideas in my post.
I am a new twitterer and never DM'd anyone so…….
charliethecat (@charlie12906411)
Sent you a DM.
It will show up as the envelope icon on Twitter.
Excuse me? We have been modding on this distinction for as long as I can remember!?
I'm asking you to explain the difference because I didn't understand your point. Please.
Balance sheet separation allows cheaper borrowing – this requires amalgamation (at least 3 council areas) to dilute control and the inclusion of alternative form of oversight (Maori and government appointee with expertise).
Anyone aware of WT decisions as to water, and the importance of corporate decision-making as to charging (rather than councillors beholden to an election cycle and the influence of local businesses – National's real connection is here).
The alternative is loading debt onto government and increasing its cost (keeping this low allows the government to provide funding to those of the 10 with a weaker ratepayer base).
Excellent article thanks Pat
You would think that help create a domestic pipeline of nurses would be receive an enthusiastic response and be treated with some urgency, right? Not so, when the Nursing Council of New Zealand is involved.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/up-education-hits-wall-with-nursing-council
It shows that definitely not all red-tape comes from (central) Government; many obstacles & hindrances are at local levels such as institution or work-place and are often elevated to pseudo-legal (aka shady) status. Reasons behind are diverse but often involve power & control and patch-protection of fiefdoms – there is no meaningful difference between elected and appointed officials or pseudo-officials with more or less fancy titles.
Getting to be a nurse is difficult i.e a Nursing Degree is required and the reason is obvious, nursing is vastly more complicated than even 20 years ago and the position of Enrolled Nurse is essentially redundant as even the simplest nursing intervention requires a lot of documentation and a very thorough knowledge of maths and other disciplines, including very good communication and language proficiency. If a nurse cannot be understood by a compromised or even elderly person then they are not suitable for the job. The Nursing Council has been steadily upgrading the education of Enrolled nurses for a long time now so that all health staff caring for patients are of a similar standard.
The right-wing love affair with the idea of just recruiting anybody from anywhere who calls themselves a nurse to fill the void is a recipe for disaster.
This is about the one-size-fits-all dogma. Some things currently done by fully qualified nurses could easily be done by others with lower/lesser qualifications perfectly well and thus take a load off the hands of nurses to do what they’re trained to do. An example is the recruiting and training of vaccinators when the need was high and outstripped the capacity because of silly restraints. Similar things happening in ECE where staff need have degrees to get a foot in the door.
It is not about self-ID as nurse, pretend to be one, and then be let loose on unsuspecting patients. Unless one fakes their CV. The Nursing Council seems to have accepted the argument but is simply stalling.
You ‘d be surprised at the number of “ nurses “ who arrive here to do their NZ gualifying course whose certifications are less than acceptable. Just so long as they are working on somebody other than you eh Incognito.
Never mind.
Have a good night.
The State-funded RNZ has published an article by a couple of academics that contains more than enough triggers to induce a fit of sorts with some.
The title (not a headline) contains the dreaded h-word. And it is downhill from there all the way to the end.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/488430/how-covid-19-lab-leak-hysteria-could-be-straight-from-the-middle-ages
For the purpose of public debate, anecdotal evidence carries as much weight as circumstantial evidence, which is why it is often accompanied by a weak narrative masquerading as compelling argument. Sounds familiar?
The “contagion effect” has been in full display here in NZ more recently. It is as real as the Sun and the Moon. It needs pointing out that it can and does work in more than one direction (aka ‘both ways’, in the usual binary situation).
The simplest and most obvious answer to the origins of Covid are that it jumped (naturally) from an animal to a human. How it might have occurred is the question and one that should be dominating discourse – not some convoluted bedtime story about fairies and pixies mixing a Covid brew then transporting it to the wider public in an effort to create widespread genocide of the human population.
I agree with the authors. The fanciful conspiracies are merely a modern day version of the witches brews and wizardry dating back to before and during the middle ages. The adherents to these conspiracies – like their predecessors – are not very intelligent and live in a state of ignorance and stupidity.
Intelligence per se doesn’t make one immune against prejudice and bias nor to dogmatic thinking, coupled with a stubborn belief in one’s intellectual & cognitive abilities that often lead to entrenched opinions that are defended with a zeal and a closed-mind for extra protection against the evil forces & influences. Is more common than we like to admit, contagious and never asymptomatic.
A few adherents to such conspiracies may actually be very intelligent, not ignorant, and will advocate for conspiracy theories that are a good fit to their world view – the triumph of pre-existing biases over case-by-case rationality.
Recognising that no-one is conpletely immune to a well-presented rabbit hole is a helpful component of any self-innoculation, but once you're personally invested in a conspiracy theory it can be difficult to climb out.
There was a tongue in cheek aspect to my response.
That would the obvious and parsimonious explanation – and it has plenty of precedent. But being obvious and natural does not always make an idea correct. Lab leaks also have plenty of precedent. It is also a documented fact the WIV was performing genetic research on coronavirus's, therefore a leak of a novel variant from this lab is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis.
It would also be nice if there was a sound chain of evidence supporting the natural ‘jump’ theory, because in this instance it is conspicuously missing.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/20/covid-lab-leak-more-likely-wuhan-analysis/
The details of the science can be found in many places – anyone with the slightest amount of curiosity can find it.
But in short an animal virus has to master two tricks in order to cause a human pandemic. One is that it has to learn how to infect a new host, which is relatively rare event. There are literally trillions of virus's, but the appearance of novel ones in humans is not commonplace. The other quite different trick is that it then has to learn how to be highly transmissible between humans.
The odds of both of these happening simultaneously without leaving any genetic chain of evidence of this natural evolutionary process is effectively zero. On the other hand there is plain sight evidence of a lab working on a very similar non-natural process, exactly in the location of the first outbreak.
Some discount the Wuhan lab leak because they note spread from the Wuhan market area.
However one of the labs in Wuhan doing bat coronavirus research (more than one) actually moved its location to 500 metres from the Wuhan market on Dec 2 2019.
https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-joe-biden-business-health-coronavirus-pandemic-986f0ff0f97af020de3b4eb3d76b23cd
PS Some claim the first reports of cases were at the military games in Wuhan in October.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and this applies to both hypotheses. Your assertions show that you’ve already made up your mind and formed your opinion on the matter. However, this doesn’t change anything for those of us who’ll remain open-minded and refuse to pick one over the other. In any case, plausibility does not equate compelling let alone convincing.
Yes there are two possible contending hypothesis and there is an absence of absolute evidence to definitively support either. Yet the reason for the absence is not equivalent for each. The reason why there is no evidence to prove the natural origin hypothesis is that despite a great deal of highly motivated effort to find it – nothing convincing has been uncovered.
The reason why there is an absence of definitive evidence for the lab leak is quite the opposite – the Chinese authorities have made every effort to prevent an open and trusted investigation into this matter.
The tenor of the first four comments on this topic that you have started was sneeringly dismissive of the lab leak hypothesis, linking to an article that offered no science based argument, instead offering an unsupported, spurious comparison with witch burning. It is not difficult to see that you too have made up you mind.
The reason I would suggest has nothing to do with witch burning, or conspiracy minded biases – it is simply a tribally political need to assure us that anything Trump said is forever automagically wrong. And perhaps more importantly to provide cover for the now well established fact of Democrat supported figures like Fauci who spear-headed much of the global response to COVID, was also deeply involved in the funding that enabled the Wuhan coronavirus research in the first place.
The unspoken reality here is that we are not debating science – but politics.
I don’t know what constitutes “absolute evidence” and I strongly suspect that it is a red herring.
The Chinese authorities are not the only ones stifling investigations. Nice try though.
Since you provided no links to those “the first four comments on this topic”, we can only guess what you have in mind.
I agree, in fact, it is impossible because it is incorrect – you are seeing imaginary things.
You assume the article linked to @ 4 is part of a larger conspiracy, a false flag operation conducted by black-op academics.
‘kay.
Right, which would mean that the hypotheses of the origin of the virus are a smokescreen in a larger game of smoke and mirrors. Thus, people such as you take sides based on political arguments not scientific ones.
The title of the RNZ article you initially linked to pretty much told me all that I needed to know – implying as it clearly does that anyone who entertains the idea of a lab leak is indulging in 'medieval' hysteria and blame pointing. It explicitly invokes witch burning as a comparison.
Returning to the quote you selected to highlight:
Again chock full of pejoratives, and clearly implies circumstantial evidence can always be hand-waved off as 'magical conspiracy thinking'. Ask any criminal barrister about the key role circumstantial or corroborative evidence plays in criminal trials where there facts of the case are in dispute. Especially when there is no access to the original scene of the crime, or there are no reliable witnesses available.
The reality is that due to the passage of time, and the obduracy of the Chinese authorities, there is almost zero chance we will ever obtain first hand information that confirms the mountain of circumstantial evidence pointing to a lab leak. (The only remaining prospect of a breakthrough will be a credible whistle-blower, although given what we know about the CCP regime I consider this extremely unlikely.)
If you are going to demand an unobtainable standard of evidence, then I respectfully submit the debate you are asking for is going to be stillborn.
I see, you assume that if somebody links to an article it must always be about the title, the stuff that jumps out at you, the tip of the iceberg, and nothing else, no double messages, et cetera. It doesn’t seem to cross your mind that it might be because of the implicit take-home message, which might be more general than the topic matter might suggest prima facie – often the topic is merely a hook. This seems to happen with others too who are rather
topic-obsessedtopic-focussed and they always react to the self-raised red flag in a highly predictable way. I had you pegged as more perceptive and with a more depth.I think this is a self-reference, as you mentioned “absolute evidence”, and nobody else has, so far.
I read the article in question – I always do because in so many instances I find it does not actually say what the person referencing it claims it does.
In this instance I found nothing of substance worth commenting on other than clickbaity title.
A superficial read doesn’t initiate any understanding. Read it again, with different eyes, this time.
The point is that they are stifling this one – the one that matters to this discussion.
It’s settled then, the Chinese did it. \sarc
End of.
And in fact , the Wuhan scientists in a grant application proposed inserting a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus that would make the virus far more transmissible to humans .The very furin cleavage site that manifested in Wuhan .Why is a lab leak considered a conspiracy theory.?
It matches the requisites for Occam's razor far better than the leap from bat into humans.
https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-grant-darpa/
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/08/why-the-chair-of-the-lancets-covid-19-commission-thinks-the-us-government-is-preventing-a-real-investigation-into-the-pandemic
Wow! A grant proposal and Occam’s razor, that’s truly compelling stuff!
Do you wish to have a go at scientific arguments? We could start anywhere, for example, here:
SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site was not engineered (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2211107119).
For balance I offer the response to the above:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2215826119
I don’t want balance, I want debate!
Where is the critical analysis of the science, the discussion of the scientific arguments, pro & con?
Oh, I forgot, this is not about the science, it is about the politics. Duh! Silly me! Thinking that furin cleavage sites are anything but politics.
There remains much 'we' don't know, let alone understand, and debating politics doesn't advance the science – let's remain open-minded while expert scientists debate the science.
If you were sincerely open-minded about the origin of COVID a man with your evident search engine expertise would have no difficulty finding plenty of references also making the case for a lab-leak.
For instance – here is an overview of the current US Administrations perspective on the matter – after considerable investigation:
https://oversight.house.gov/release/covid-origins-part-2-hearing-wrap-up-intelligence-community-officials-provide-further-evidence-that-covid-19-originated-in-a-wuhan-lab/
The other well understood problem here is that virtually every expert virologist who we might normally rely upon for unbiased viewpoints – are hopelessly conflicted in this matter. For a start there is the well documented problem that anyone who speaks out against the approved narrative is very likely to be denied funding in future. And this is before we consider the wider concern many will reasonably have about the massive global damage to their profession's credibility if this event was ever proven to be due to be man-made.
The other well known challenge is the outright censorship or curation almost all medical journals are imposing on any COVID paper that is not aligned with editorial policy.
Normally I would like to think we could rely on the professional science debate to present both sides of the case in an even-handed fashion, but sadly this is not the case with this pandemic – almost all the regulators, journals and science bodies are deeply conflicted due to their massive reliance on single source, or industry funding, that constrains what they can safely say and still have a job.
Thanks Red – note that none of the 6 articles I linked to definitively rules out the lab leak hypothesis, which speaks to their credibility, imho. But have a read of them and see what you think.
We often see what we want to see. The attraction of the lab leak hypothesis is clear, and I admire your unshakable belief in its veracity.
I like to think I'm open-minded, and yes, I could find those pro-lab leak references. But, as I've mentioned on several occasions, in matters scientific I naturally tend to rely primarily on the evolving consensus opinion of expert scientists. In this case, maybe that's the wrong approach, but it's an approach which has served me well and for longer than I care to remember.
There was always one sure fire way to have proven me wrong. An unconstrained, trusted, open book, pockets out investigation at the WIV within days of the original event back in October 2019.
As it stands three years later we are left with either a natural origin hypothesis for which, despite massive effort, there is insufficient definitive evidence to support.
OR a lab leak of some kind for which there is a mountain of corroborating evidence – but for which we are never likely to find the definitive evidence either. But in this case because the guilty parties have determined we must not look for it.
And that anyone who does is to be smeared as a medieval, witch-burning ignoramus.
I’ve little interest in proving that you are wrong – that’s not what motivates me.
In this instance, scientists and other 'investigators' who assume there must be "guilty parties" are rather giving their game away – I prefer to remain open-minded, but understand that's not for everyone.
Such wonderfully colourful hyperbole – more please.
I was paraphrasing that from the article Incognito linked to in the comment which kicked off this thread. I thought it a little over the top too.
At every point I have been scrupulous to note that both the spillover and lab-leak hypothesis are valid choices from a purely scientific perspective. Yet at this point in time I do not believe the evidence we do have to hand supports them equally.
Nor for all the reasons I have already touched on, do I consider them 'equivalent' hypothesis. COVID as just another spillover event happily aligns with the interests of a great many professional people who lead and control our medical and public health systems.
COVID as a lab-leak by contrast holds a much darker prospect for many of these same people. Show me the incentives – and I will show you the outcomes.
That would be nice, but frankly when I reflect on the broad public debate I see quite the opposite in play – people locked into positionality and refusing to so much as look at the evidence for the case they are opposed to.
As far as I am concerned the spillover case is perfectly possible but so far despite almost 3yrs of highly motivated effort, definitive and convincing evidence remains elusive.
The lab-leak case by contrast could have been definitively proven or disproven 3yrs ago with a full and transparent investigation. The fact that the relevant authorities have prevented this rather gives their game away – and as far as I am concerned quite fairly speaks to their guilt.
Agree 100% – mine has always been "a purely scientific perspective". That's the reason I don't much credit the idea that a secret cabal of "a great many professional people who lead and control our medical and public health systems" is actively concealing the truth. Tbh, that idea seems relatively fantastic to me – much less likely than (for example) the idea that a great many professionals are simply mistaken.
I mean, just how big is this group of professionals that might be trying to cover up the truth? Thousands? Tens of thousands? While the lab leak hypothesis remains a possibility, I reckon the idea that a conspiracy of experts is concealing the truth about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 will eventually be consigned to the fringes, much like the idea that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories
I'll be keeping an open mind, pending further evidence
The problem for this argument is that it is no longer much of a secret. In recent months much of how this was done has now become common knowledge, which is why this topic has re-surfaced now.
Medicine, as you likely well know, is a very hierarchal profession and it is not hard for a relatively small handful of elites at the top to impose their agenda. Especially when they control research funding, professional registrations, – most especially when they have a great deal of collective credibility at stake.
Medicine and science are two quite different things. MDs are not the ones experimenting with viruses in the lab.
@Incognito
Ah the old 'I'm going to make myself a small target until I can provoke the other person into saying something I can snipe at' gambit.
Nice try – as I recall someone recently saying.
There’s only sniper here and it ain’t me.
A though-provoker is somebody who’s interested in genuine debate. A provocateur is not. I’m interested in genuine debate with people who have an open-mind and when they talk about science they mean science, for example.
Have a good evening.
From my point of view, you seem to be slipping further down the 'SARS-CoV-2 lab leak origin' rabbit hole.
You're now suggesting that “a relatively small handful [as opposed to a relatively large handful – care to take a punt at how many?] of elite medics used threats and intimidation to quash alternative narratives.
Well, if that is indeed the case, then, despite all their power, this small handful of controlling elites hasn't done a very good job. Maybe that's because they are a "relatively small handful" – you know, like the famously small hands of (then) President Trump.
"Enormous evidence" – 3 years ago! Why are we still debating this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation#Virus_origin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2#Reservoir_and_origin
Frankly whenever I come across someone using the word 'misinformation' these days I assume they are attempting to force the debate to a predetermined outcome. Disingenuous at best; more commonly a borderline authoritarian censorship tactic. It certainly does not suggest someone interested in investigating the science in an even-handed manner.
And in case you had not noticed, Trump is no longer President. Quoting three year old statements is a tactic that suggests either you are not up to speed with the current developments, or less charitably you are attempting a smear by political association to Donald Trump – a figure with precious little relevance to the debate other than being a handy well-poisoner.
The officials and agencies quoted in my link well above – that I assume you did not bother to read – all work for the Biden Administration. And they too clearly indicate there is sufficient reason to take the lab-leak thesis seriously.
If you choose not to inform yourself with the excuse that it is 'all some conspiracy minded rabbit-hole' – then I feel no obligation to re-type out here the mass of information available to a man with your evident search engine skills.
"Enormous evidence" – 3 years ago! Why are we still debating this?
Well if for the sake of argument we allow that Pompeo is correct, it is clear that he is referring to evidence of a circumstantial or corroborating nature – because as we both understand the Chinese authorities have never permitted a proper, transparent investigation. Nor for that matter certain figures in the US Administration who were indirectly funding coronavirus research at WIV.
And as Director of the CIA we might hazard a guess that Pompeo had a higher security clearance than you or me, and that if he assessed three years ago the information available to him as a "mountain of evidence" – then who are we to quibble? Especially when this claim has been largely confirmed by numerous independent researchers and various US govt agencies subsequently.
I can sympathise with your predicament. If you feel a life-long attachment and respect for the medical and science establishment, claims of their malfeasance will not be welcomed by you. I get it.
But the game you are playing here is obvious; you cannot produce definitive science evidence to support your preferred spillover thesis, instead all of your energy goes into various slippery tactics to discredit the alternative. Frankly I am losing interest in this fast.
I don't think you do, and can only repeat that in matters scientific, I tend to rely on evolving consensus expert opinion. Re alleged "malfeasance", my "predicament" is entirely in your own head.
Btw, is it "a small handful of elites", or the (much broader) "medical and science establishment" that stands accused of "malfeasance"?
Re playing games, I can 'play' too
Fwiw, I'm not trying to discredit the lab leak hypothesis any more than you are trying to discredit zoonotic emergence – it's simply that, based on available evidence, I (and many others) simply don't find 'a lab leak', even an accidental leak, as persuasive as zoonotic emergence. I suggest that we agree to disagree on the most likely origins of SARS-CoV-2, and hope that will not prove too difficult for you.
Lastly, it's a bit rich for you to assert that all of my energy "goes into various slippery tactics" – I had hoped you might have grown out of your habit of slurring those who disagree with your convictions, but your comment @6:06 pm put paid to those hopes.
First of all you say this:
Then you say this:
Make up your mind as to what you are doing here. Otherwise this is just gaslighting.
Red, please – you wrote (@3:39 pm):
This is fanciful nonsense that does the lab leak hypothesis no favours – it's effectively piling a conspiracy theory on an (imho) already weak hypothesis, hence my reply (@5:29 pm):
I get it – you genuinely believe that the lab leak hypothesis is the best explanation for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic – that's fine.
But if you can't make a decent case for a lab leak without invoking "malfeasance" on the part of a small global cabal of medical elites, then disinterested readers might wonder about the quality of your evidence.
What I'm doing in this thread is providing links to support my contention that zoonotic emergence is currently the best explanation for the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Not the only explanation, but still the best of the competing explanations, pending further evidence. You have a different opinion, and yet it seems that agreeing to disagree is a step to far for you.
It took me 20 min to find serious problems with all three of those references. For the sake of brevity I will deal with just the second one led by Frutos. In Sec 2.1 the possibility of a lab leak is dismissed with this argument:
The critical idea that COVID might have evolved from RmYN02 is cast heavily into doubt in this paper:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202100015
Which concludes:
Not so clear cut after all.
Then there is the second para that somewhat bizarrely relies on Anderson (who was conflicted all to hell and back due to his direct financial involvement at WIV, and whose presence on the WHO 'investigation' highly contributed to it being widely regarded as a farce.)
And then even more bizarrely relies on the word of WIV that they were not conducting 'gain of function' experiments, when just a few years earlier they were publishing papers claiming exactly this.
And just to insult our intelligence it is implied that the WIV public database could be relied upon to be a full and complete record of every virus they worked with. You know – the same database WIV yanked from the public domain on 12 Sept 2019 and has never been made available since.
If a dumbarse non-specialist like me can unearth such elementary logical problems under my own steam with only the smallest amount of effort – I'm not impressed.
Ask the nurses, clinicians and practitioners world wide who have found themselves out of a job or had their registration revoked because they held a dissenting view about vaccines. Or the prominent researchers who suddenly found their papers were being rejected by journal editors before even going to peer review.
Or the commonplace experience of seeing anything arbitrarily deemed ‘misinformation’ yanked off social media.
Or the tens of millions of us who were sneered at, mocked, censored or gaslit because our experience did not fall into line with 'safe and effective' for some reason.
'Fanciful' my arse. The establishment went into overdrive covering it’s butt on this one.
Correction:
Late at night I mixed up Andersen and Daszak. Daszak of course worked for the now notorious EcoHealth Alliance that was used as the cutout middleman to enable NIH to fund WIV to perform GoF style research, explicitly banned by the Obama administration. Initially received as an expert, his credibility crumbled as his hopeless conflicts of interest became more apparent.
Andersen – is neck deep in this is a somewhat different way. It is his often cited "Proximal Origins" paper in March 2020 has gained notoriety because an email chain between him and Fauci, starting late at night on the 31 Jan 2020 has a group of these people all suddenly realising that this new virus really could be a lab leak and that something needs to be done to dampen this speculation down.
The immediate outcome was a paper that has been heavily criticised and has become the subject of Congressional inquiry. This article goes into the detail:
https://theintercept.com/2023/01/19/covid-origin-nih-emails/
The core problem is that this was always a highly specialised field, with probably fewer than 100 people in the world truly across all the relevant material and with hands-on experience. But as the only experts they are also completely conflicted – which makes depending on anything they say inherently problematic.
Imagine an Inquiry into say the collapse of a major engineering structure such as a bridge. Absolutely the engineers who designed it would be required to give a full and complete accounting of their entire design process – but there would also be no difficulty in finding respected independent engineers to assist and advise the Inquiry. But the same is not quite as true for highly specialised fields like this – especially when there are networks of funding and professional links that entangle almost everyone.
Having said this – there are plenty of highly qualified people with more than enough knowledge of virology who looked at this entire business of genetically manipulating virus's in the lab who have long said the risks far outweighed any potential benefits. This is precisely why the Obama administration had placed a moratorium on this type of research in the first place.
And I think events proved this precaution entirely correct. And those who intentionally side-stepped it should be held to account.
Your bridge analogy is deeply flawed in this context. It does highlight your predetermined mind.
Why?
In the aftermath of the ChCh earthquakes there was a proper investigation into the collapse of the ITV building. Any workplace accident will be investigated; medical people who act recklessly resulting in harm or death can be expected to be investigated.
But what does not happen is that we allow the people involved to effectively conduct the investigation into themselves. Nor any related party or with a conflict of interest. The investigators are required to be independent and seen to be so.
Thanks Red, that helped me understand your PoV. Enjoy your day.
My PoV has nothing to do with it.
If you are defending a group of scientists who might have been culpable for the deaths of some 20 million people – and 3 yrs later have still managed to evade open, transparent scrutiny, much less be held to any account – then I think you are way too complacent.
Good-oh. Not me though – my PoV inflluences the content of my comments, and indeed whether or not I choose to comment at all.
Am I defending a small global confederacy of elite medics/scientists – who are they? 'Might" suggests that you haven't convicted these elites yet, which is encouragingly open-minded, particularly given the paucity of strong evidence – new evidence will likely come to light over time.
20 million is a lot; I recall some Standardistas questioning the accuracy of the COVID-19 death toll, and even the duration of the pandemic in its early months – but PoVs can change with time and new evidence.
As usual you reply with a handful of sentences of your own, then pad out the rest of the comment with a wall of multiple references. References have their place, but all too often I sense you hide behind them, not clearly stating your argument. But to work with what little you have offered:
Again returning to the two thesis in play here, spillover or lab-leak. We agree there is no definitive evidence to support either, but very different reasons.
Spillover lacks definitive evidence because despite a highly motivated effort to find it, nothing convincing has been found. Lab-leak lacks definitive evidence because despite a mountain of circumstantial and corroborative evidence – we have not been allowed to look for the smoking gun – by the very people implicated in this research.
The two cases are not equivalent at all. Spillover, given all the 2020's genomic high tech and resources thrown at it, should have been a relatively straightforward matter to establish on purely science grounds. You can hide behind 'maybe it will come to light in time', but as each year passes that prospect dims. How many more years do you propose waiting? Another three, a decade or more? At some point this argument will expire.
By contrast obtaining lab-leak thesis evidence was stifled by ill-intent right from the outset, not just by Chinese authorities, but right from the top in the US and across a network of highly conflicted individuals. None of this is speculation, we now have sufficient documentation to confirm this suspicion.
From a judicial perspective the lab-leak prosecution can present, means, opportunity, and guilty action to cover up the crime. Not to mention that mountain of corroboration.
My 'argument' is that zoonotic emergence is the most likely SARS-CoV-2 origin hypothesis. I sense that many proponents of the lab leak hypothesis are politically motivated and/or conspiracy theorists.
The small global confederacy of elite medics and scientists must be doing a tremendous job of motivating their army of (ignorant?) expert minions to look for evidence of zoonotic emergence. Or do you believe that the minions are also aware of the truth, and this "highly motivated effort" is nothing more than a massive orchestrated smokescreen?
Really – "a relatively straightforward matter"? OK, you know best. Personally, I'd give it another 5 years of scientific investigation – it's important to get this rigtht. More evidence will come to light, and if consensus expert opinion shifts to favour the lab leak hypothesis, then my opinion will shift, in line with evidence-based open-mindedness.
Re "highly motivated" – never have truer words been written
Do you recall back in Feb 2020 how the CCP tightly locked down all domestic travel inside China, while at the same time demanding that all other nations continue to allow travel internationally? Some of their more noxious spokespeople insisting it would be 'racist' not to do so. And thereby ensuring that any remaining chance of containing the outbreak would be lost.
Do you not recall this act of vile perfidy? And why would any sane person give these people the slightest benefit of the doubt in the light of this?
I recall domestic travel restrictions (in/out of Wuhan) from 23 Jan 2020, but not the "demanding that all other nations continue to allow travel internationally" bit (link?) – funny how one's mind can play tricks.
How did other nations respond to the CCP's demands, do you know?
Some groups, e.g. COVID Plan B, agitated for a relaxation of border controls early on, and such public health measures also inconvenienced many Kiwis temporarily stranded overseas.
So , a lab intends to insert the very mechanism into a virus that makes it super transmissible between humans
The novel virus makes its first ever appearance in the human population close to the lab and proceeds to travel quickly to the point we have a pandemic
That this happened naturally depends on a intermediary host
Have we found that host?
Not as far as I'm aware
So, the or a lab did insert the furin cleavage site, according to your belief. Problem is that the scientific evidence is controversial and disputed and hardly constitutes evidence for your preferred
hypothesisbelief.Do you want to discuss the pro & con of the scientific arguments or do you want to deal in conspiracy stuff? If the former, I don’t think you have what it takes. If the latter, you’re right at home.
What's the conspiracy stuff?
That there's a possibility covid originated from a lab leak ?
That we'll probably never know?
That natural evolution of the virus still hasn't been proved?
Jeez, conspiracy theories just aren't that juicy anymore
But what about the furin cleavage site??
Written with no awareness that conspiracy theory creation is part of psychological warfare operations (CIA …)
The Russians used the psychiatric institution gulag in Siberia and there is a western version – taking people out of the (Kansas) city to the (Missouri) country side cult (a joke about Joseph Smith believing paradise was in Missouri).
https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/where-is-the-garden-of-eden-why-the-lds-owns-over-3000-acres-in-missouri/
Maybe, maybe not. It was not relevant to that article.
I fully expect the National Party to get behind this and the PR team must be writing the tweet as we speak.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/300858769/university-of-waikatos-new-dean-of-health-renews-push-for-third-medical-school
Edit: Dr Shane Reti had already paved the way the day before:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/131806383/nursing-gaps-at-waikato-indicate-health-crisis–national
It would be interesting to see an informed debate over the relative pros and cons of the undergrad health science degree + 4 year medical degree model proposed by Waikato, against the 'traditional' 6 year medical degree (1 yr health science + 5 years medicine) at Auckland/Otago.
Lane provides figures to show that the proposed Waikato model is at least 25% cheaper per graduate – even though it takes 1 year longer. Is the 'quality' equivalent?
It seems as though it's the cost per student that the government is jibbing at (or at least, I can't think of any other reason) – so a mechanism to reduce the cost seems like a strategic winner.
Until we see a detailed proposal and plan, all we have is rumour, speculation, and talking points. This might be good enough for National but not for real decisions that are evidence-based.
To Incfognito, I thought it was a very good article, balanced and reasonable. It bought to mind the story as to why the post WW1 pandemic was called the Spanish Flu, it was purportedly because only the Spanish newspapers were able to report on it as the combatant countries were under strict wartime censorship. I was also under the impression that the contagion originated somewhere in the Mid-West in an army training camp just before the troops there were deployed to Europe. Hmmm, wouldn't want that knowledge getting out eh.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/300859115/max-rashbrooke-whats-really-going-on-behind-the-scenes-of-the-latest-tax-battles
Dear Mr Rashbrooke, there is a third option that will guaranteed to be the preferred one by Labour and National alike: seek non-partisan support across the centre (aka across the floor). Since we all know that this is as hard to find as a unicorn winter grazing in a paddock both parties will embrace this ‘solution’ and ‘look good’ – a win-win.
A surprising admission from a former Minister of Finance
She is of the view that increases in incomes derive from inflation, rather than from wage share of profit. Is this based on the idea that profit is (or should be) directed to owners rather than workers?
Her other argument is that none of the proceeds from economic growth (bracket creep) should be shared with the government sector. Given the aging of the population – rising health cost and their (until Cullen – and no National Minister has placed money into the NZS Fund) lack of provision for the rising cost of super is frankly irresponsible.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300856794/ruth-richardson-the-taxation-problem-i-should-have-fixed-33-years-ago
Typical ruth richardson answer, flat taxes, to screwing over the poor.
That is one fubar link SPC – richardson is the classic dogmatic ideological puritanical prig. The type of politician this country produces in spades.
No wonder we can't have nice things.
Richardson is a little disingenuous, as expected. For example, somebody on a minimum wage has to work well over 40 h/week for 52 weeks a year to even touch the $48k threshold. She also failed to mention the role of the independent RBNZ in controlling inflation. True to form, she points to Government spending causing inflation, which is another misleading argument. Honestly, I cannot be bothered even trying to counter Richardson’s spin – you can tell it is Election Year when the old rusty tanks get rolled out, making their creaky & squeaky sounds through well-worn cogs & sprockets and let’s hope the wheels don’t start falling off. The Onion seems to have a finger in many pies.
However, you don't have to be very far above minimum wage ($22.70) to hit the 48,000 for 40/52 weeks – it's $23.08.
Every local restaurant job earns at least this (or they don't get staff), roading workers are way above, as are bus drivers. Apart from McDonalds, or very part-time supermarket shelf-stacking – you're not going to find any jobs in Auckland paying less than $23 (even if they're advertising lower, they just won't get any applicants).
Indexing tax rates to average wage is something that's long overdue – and a failure from both major political parties.
The average is below the median. But even so, more workers are below the average than above it.
To make more people better off, one changes the thresholds at the lower levels.
Oz has zero to $18,000.
https://www.superguide.com.au/how-super-works/income-tax-rates-brackets#Australian_income_tax_rates_for_202223_residents
Note how their bands are close to ours
Oz first.
0-18,000 at 0 ************ 0 to 14,500 at 10.5
18-45,000 at 19 14,000 ***** 14,500 to 48,000 at 17.5
45 to 120,000 at 32.5 ****** 48,000 to 70,000 at 30
120,000 to 180,000 at 37 *** 70,000 to 90,000 at 33
over 180,000 at 45 ******** 90,000 to 180,000 at 35 (and over 180,000 at 39)
In the 2023 budget I'd make one change to 10 cents for the first $20,000. And above that as now. That would give all workers $500 pa.
But for an election policy one could go further.
With the concept of income tax revenue neutrality – say 2024-2025.
17.5% to $50,000, 30 cents to $75,000. 33 cents to $100,000. 35 cents to $150,000. 39 cents over $150,000. 45 cents over $200,000.
And if one brought in some sort of Green wealth tax, say from 2025 – one could go further for 2025-2026.
Say have 30 cents to $100,000 and 33 cents to 150,000. 35 cents to $200,000. 39 cents over.
PS A Green wealth tax option first threshold change – say 10 cents to $25,000.
I’d be (pleasantly?) surprised if the Bread & Butter Budget-2023 contained any changes to the lower tax brackets that would take effect in the foreseeable future.
I'd go with
1. a statement in the budget this year of the first threshold change for 1 April 2024. Every worker gets the same $500 cut in income tax next year.
2. then go into the campaign with a policy of threshold adjustments that are income tax neutral.
But add a provision if there was a coalition deal with Greens that included a wealth tax, then the money would allow adjustments reducing income tax in all threshold bands.
The point to show greater responsibility than NACT. And a better deal for the many.
Yes, that sounds good to me, and it would take some wind out of TOP’s sails too.
We’ll find out in a few weeks how far Labour is daring to go to win the Election.
Australia vs NZ tax on income (OZ is green NZ is blue)
0-18,000 at 0% vs 0 to 14,500 at 10.5 % and 14.501 – 18.000 at 17.5%
(NZ taxes the first 18 grand up to 17.5 % higher then OZ which stands at 0 tax, something that would benefit part time workers/casual workers and low income workers even tho high incomes will also benefit)
18.001 – 45.000 at 19% vs 14.500 – 48.000 at 17.5%
(agree this is a similar tax rate and the only one were taxes are higher then in NZ)
45.000 to 120,000 at 32.5% vs 45,0001 to 70,000 at 30% and 70.001 – 90.000 at 33% and 90.001 – 120.000 at 35%
(it seems to me that the OZ tax is less complex and overall better for the worker)
120.001-180.000 at 37% vs 90.000 – 180.000 at 35%
(now here OZ has more tax income than NZ and in NZ we are charging that higher rate to lower income)
over 180,000 at 45% vs over 180,000 at 39%
(OZ charges the higher incomes a much higher tax rate then NZ)
We are not close at all. We are quite opposite. We have a bloated system that makes no exemption for low income worker but looks well after those on high incomes.
For the record I have been advocating for 0 tax on the first 25 grand earned as that is still the minimum for a rental to pay for a while now – since the John Key years publicly here and have been told that it would be too complicated, only benefit rich people blablabla.
Sadly the current government will not change the tax code to benefit the low income worker.
Our low income earner rebate could be adjusted (it's for those working who have no children and thus cannot get WFF tax credits).
It's currently $10 a week and operates between $24,000 and $48,000. . It could be larger start lower and go higher (to the median wage c$60,000). That's the alternative to a zero free zone (thus none of the amount goes to those on more than $60,000 that more than halves the cost).
https://www.ird.govt.nz/income-tax/income-tax-for-individuals/individual-tax-credits/independent-earner-tax-credit-ietc
stop with the tinkering and go 0 tax on the first 25.000 grand. If OZ can do that, why can't we.
our income tax punished the low income earner and gives a well greased handshake to the well to do, but in saying that, i can totes see why Grant Robertson will no more increase his tax burden then would Chris Luxon or Mr. Seymour. Cause they like their low taxes.
So you want to help those on the lowest income threshhold but only in way that also lines the pockets of those on above median wage incomes. Which more than doubles the cost. Who pays for this – the poor dependent on a run down health system (as they have no medical insurance)?
Oz has higher income tax rates over 18,000 than we do, to afford it. They also have CGT and a land tax and stamp duty.
The difference between you and me is that i don't care about purity. Firstly.
Secondly, yes, taking the taxes on the first 25 grand to 0 will equally benefit the higher income earner as they also would not have to pay taxes on that amount. And here is where OZ has shown us the way, they charge a higher income tax at the higher end,
see here
120.001-180.000 at 37% vs 90.000 – 180.000 at 35% – OZ being 2% higher here
and
over 180,000 at 45% vs over 180,000 at 39% – OZ being 6 % higher here.
In fact we could dump our system and copy the OZ system, full stop. It would benefit the lower income and raise taxes on the rich. Ka-ching, bingo, we have a winner here. And no one has to think it up either, we just copy!
But we will not do such a thing because neither Grant Roberston, nor Chris Luxon, nor Mr. Seymour will change their tax rate to cost them more of their earnings. No siree, why would they.
So yes, go OZ well done, you are charging the rich to give a few more pennies to the poor. Well done, Sadly it can't won't be done in NZ cause we are buys finding excuses as to why not, and because we can't even imagine rich people like our Parliamentarian Critters to pay their fair share. So sad!
10 bucks a week, 520 NZD per year.
Good grief that is fuck all.
She really is as thick as pigsh*t imho.
Mr Rashbrooke notes "The radical becomes respectable" and "bad ideas don’t stand up to scrutiny. But, as a corollary, the good ones eventually win out."
https://www.greens.org.nz/persistent_inflation_shows_urgent_need_to_tax_wealth
Given that there are more voters negatively affected by our growing inequity, one would imagine there's an election strategy in there somewhere.
I agree, but I suspect that most Green Party voters are not among the most affected and frankly, I cannot see this changing much before October, if ever.
One hopes a certain red-hued faction seizes the nettle and returns to their roots, if one can forgive the mixed garden metaphors; seems appropriate for advice coming from the Greens.
As you know, I like metaphors. I hope Budget-2023 will give us hope.
That's the answer to their many ill gotten gains.
Amongst the mountains of dross on television, there are little nuggets of gold. I caught the tail end of Studio B: Unscripted on Al Jazeera this morning.
Titled "The deadly word, freedom: Brian Eno and Ha-Joon Chang" (Pt 1), many on this site would find common ground with this very interesting discussion.
Also on YouTube.
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/studio-b-unscripted/2023/4/16/the-deadly-word-freedom-brian-eno-and-ha-joon-chang
With acknowledgement this is not political in any form – is anyone else on TS watching and enjoying Apple TV's – Ted Lasso?
(Currently halfway through the third and final season)
https://youtu.be/3u7EIiohs6U
Queensland is more enlightened than us. Well to be expected with how fubar we are and how beige our last two governments have been.
The USA Supreme Court is allowing the continued supply by mail of an abortion pill, overturning a Court of Appeal ruling that required collection visits while a case over the legality of the pills (on the dubious grounds of process to authorise their use, as per safety, when the pills now have a decades long real world safety record) is on-going.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65356390
Basically conservative judges, in states set to ban abortions, are being targeted by abortion opponents to ban the pill nationwide. One suspects however (sans SCOTUS finding in their favour) that the real political agenda is to legislate a federal ban on movement of the pill into states with abortion bans (it's a reprise of the underground railroad scenario of the 19thC).
The same people also oppose funding for Family Planning (contraceptive pills, condoms and morning after pills), sex education in schools and fertility treatment.
https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/news/in-the-news/democrats-look-to-protect-fertility-treatments-in-post-roe-era
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/23/613777772/under-trump-family-planning-funds-could-go-to-groups-that-don-t-offer-birth-cont
https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/press-release/poll-finds-most-americans-oppose-trump-administrations-changes-to-restrict-title-x-family-planning-funds-from-clinics-that-provide-or-refer-for-abortion/
The Standard Housekeeping
Headsup that the Mobile version of TS has been turned off for now because it was causing too many problems. We can still use the Desktop version on a mobile device, but some people won't be able to comment from there. Sorry about that, but all posts should be able to be read now.
If you are on a mobile device and can't comment from the Desktop version, can you please reply below with details, cheers.
Edit, I can make a new comment from the Desktop version but I can’t usually reply.
I've been having problems commenting from my phone. Interesting I can reply here!
are you using the Desktop version on your phone right now? Were you not able to comment from that before?
If you change the time stamp, it'll go to the top of OM 😉
Yes I am using desktop version. Haven't been able to access the mobile version for some time now. And no I wasn't able to comment on some occasions. Click on reply button, but no keyboard 😕
strange. Most of the time I can't comment, very occassionally I can if I double click in the text editor.
@ Muttonbird, I lifted your ban @ 8:20 pm. I checked and I can’t see why your comments are still ending up in Trash. Apologies for the inconvenience, but this is above my pay-grade.
they trashed that last comment themselves?
Yes, you’re right, it does seem that way. So, MB may be good to go, phew! Otherwise, they’ll just have to wait for Lynn – there’s nothing else I can do here.
@ Muttonbird, have you seen the Housekeeping Note from weka (https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-22-04-2023/#comment-1946902)?
Russia, a terror state where elderly women are fined twice their monthly pension for saying Zelensky is handsome, single fathers imprisoned and their child returned to her long estranged mother for producing an antiwar drawing and where dissident journalists are sentenced to 25 years in prison for being, of course, dissident journalists.
https://www.thebulwark.com/putins-reign-of-terror-russia/